Updating to Windows 10 Version 2004/Conexant Drivers

Doing my twice-daily check on the MS website regarding these, I see that both the Conexant "issues" were updated 5th January 2021, and now have a status of "Confirmed"; which I think was previously "Investigating".

I do not speak Microsoft gobbledegook, and would be grateful if anyone "in the know" can explain the significance of "Confirmed"; especially as it has taken them more than 6 months to achieve this status, whatever it may mean.

Thanks,

Peter

I would expect that Microsoft will fix the problem so that 2004 will install without needing to update those drivers or will supply any updated drivers.

Currently no date is known on any of the fixes.

Hey Everyone,

I wanted to tell all of you that I had the same problem with my Asus GL552VX, but I managed to solve it.

The blocker is mainly the Conexant audio driver, as there is no update yet in most of the laptots... but for Lenovo laptops.

What I did is download the Lenovo driver from here, Instead of installing it using the setup wizard, I selected the option "Extract only".

After extracting the package, I went to the device manager, selected Conexant SmartAudio HD, clicked on Properties and in the driver tab, I clicked in the update driver button.

In that wizard, you need to select to search the driver in your disk and later go to "choose from a list of drivers in my computer"...

Choose have disk (or use disk, I don't remember the exact english text), and go to the directory where you extracted the driver previously (within that directory you will need to navigate to WIN\AUDIO\20202908.1013083\x64), make sure to untick the show compatible hardware option.

This driver might tell you that is not signed or validated for your device, you can ignore that warning and go forward.

This driver is updated with versions not affected by the bug that MS states in his page for 2004 update, so, if the driver works fine (in my case worked like a charm), this will unlock your computer for 2004 update.

If you have any issue with the audio, like it not working or something else, you can always return to the previous driver version through the device manager.

What you can do later if windows update still does not offer the update is go to this page and download the MS update assistant, which will override Windows update.

This procedure worked perfectly for me and now I have Windows 10 2004 installed for a week now.

Hope this works for you guys as well...

Cheers

Microsoft attempts to deliver the drivers, but doesn't take responsibility for the drivers themselves. That responsibility belongs to Synaptics, and to the OEMs who sold the machines.

But Microsoft is going to have to make a decision. I suspect there are a lot of machines out there that have this problem and in most cases the owners don't even know it yet. Microsoft's arbitrary end-of-support date for 1909 is May 11, 2021 which is getting pretty close. It'll be interesting to see what they do. If they let these machines go without continuing security updates I hope it generates a lot media attention.

It's possible that neither Microsoft nor Synaptics yet understands why these drivers are suddenly getting in the way of Windows Feature updates beginning with 2004. Or, Microsoft may have made some new rules, and Synaptics doesn't want to be bothered. So it's arguable who's at fault. But there's an easy fix in the short term: Just make the corresponding generic Microsoft driver the preferred driver. No more complicated hacks would be needed.

I can see why Microsoft wouldn't want to unilaterally do this, they'd be taking over responsibility for the device's performance and letting Synaptics off the hook. But both parties need to put the users first. Microsoft should replace the Conexant drivers with Microsoft drives and Synaptics should agree to continue to accept responsibility.

If May 11 comes and goes with no compromises, neither Microsoft nor Synaptics is going to look good.

Annoying I don't even use my drivers & conexant chipset - I have a Bluetooth headset and a docking station which does sound over the USB link. I tried the obvious of disabling the Conexant device and then removing it but I don;t know if the update program is actually checking or has just left a flag saying "not compatible".

What bothers me is did synoptics just buy the assets, code libraries etc. then layoff the engineers who support old sound cards they no longer sell? ie.. do they have staff who can fix the driver?

And what bothers me more as an omen is that MS and Synaptic are both companies with billions of dollars - if they had any real desire to fix it this at all (or quickly) don't you think they could do better than almost 3 months?