HP bricks ProBook laptops with bad BIOS delivered via automatic updates — many users face black screen after Windows pushes new firmware

lemme in@lemm.ee to Technology@lemmy.world – 695 points – HP bricks ProBook laptops with bad BIOS delivered via automatic updates — many users face black screen after Windows pushes new firmware
tomshardware.com

On May 26, a user on HP's support forums reported that a forced, automatic BIOS update had bricked their HP ProBook 455 G7 into an unusable state. Subsequently, other users have joined the thread to sound off about experiencing the same issue.

This common knowledge regarding BIOS software would, then, seem to make automatic, forced BIOS updates a real issue, even if it weren't breaking anything. Allowing the user to manually install and prepare their systems for a BIOS update is key to preventing issues like this.

At the time of writing, HP has made no official comment on the matter — and since this battery update was forced on laptops originally released in 2020, this issue has also bricked hardware outside of the warranty window, when previously users could simply send in the laptop for a free repair.

Overall, this isn't a very good look for HP, particularly its BIOS update practices. The fragility of BIOS software should have tipped off the powers at be at HP about the lack of foresight in this release model, and now we're seeing it in full force with forced, bugged BIOS updates that kill laptops.

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Microsoft has no business forcing firmware updates on anything. This is something HP should have handled. Those laptops are THEIR products, not Microsoft's.

This is something HP should have handled.

If a bad update is rolled out then it's the responsibility of the software maker partner (HP) and the distributor (Microsoft), not just one or the other.

Those laptops are THEIR products, not Microsoft’s.

Both Microsoft and HP have branding on their laptops and a responsibility post-sale for the reliability of their systems. Hardware, firmware and OS responsibilities are all party to this chain of failure.

This logic breaks down when you realize the laptop is mine, and not HP's or Windows. And any software that is mine, my copy of windows should also be mine and not microsoft's, can modify my device if I have selected some of my software to do that.

Well, you might want to avoid fwupd too then

Fwupd is a pull model, not a pushed automatic update. Who the fuck doesn’t read release notes and do due diligence before running fwupd?

Every fucking Ubuntu user where it's installed by default in Software Center?

Fedora pulls fwupd by default. If you use one of the 'check for updates' UIs, fwupd, dnf, and flatpak sources are all polled.