Planning to install Windows 10 LTSC (build 1809) which drivers to install ?

[Seyrren]

Hi i have a gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 DDR3 motherboard, and i'm planing to install windows 10 LTSC 1809 and i'm wondering what drivers to get as i usually have 3 options:

 

One that says Win10 ver.1903 supported

One that says Win10 ver.1809 supported

And the oldest which just says Windows 10 64bit

 

For most i went with the one that said "Win10 ver.1809" but for chipset i only found either "Win10 ver.1903" or the oldest one, which should i pick ? I also found an intel chipset driver for "Win10 ver.1809" but it was for a gigabyte z270 motherboard, should i go for that ? Are they usually packaged together (i.e. Intel chipset drivers containing drivers for Z370, Z270 & Z170 ? )

 

Or should i go for the latest drivers (for 1903) even though i'm on 1809 ?

[Master Disaster]

Why would you want to run a 2 1/2yr out of date OS? LTSC releases are mostly aimed at large businesses with hundreds of employee machines and laptops that want stability over new features, on your home machine there's no reason to not run 20H2 (if only for the WAAAAY better start menu it brings).

[Seyrren]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Why would you want to run a 2 1/2yr out of date OS? LTSC releases are mostly aimed at large businesses with hundreds of employee machines and laptops that want stability over new features, on your home machine there's no reason to not run 20H2 (if only for the WAAAAY better start menu it brings).

I ran it, it was a disaster.

[starry]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Why would you want to run a 2 1/2yr out of date OS? LTSC releases are mostly aimed at large businesses with hundreds of employee machines and laptops that want stability over new features, on your home machine there's no reason to not run 20H2 (if only for the WAAAAY better start menu it brings).

consumer windows 10 support channels do not take old hardware into account when they release updates, and can cause a lot of issues for certain people

[Master Disaster]

Just now, Seyrren said:

I ran it, it was a disaster.

What were the issues you had?

 

Honestly, if 20H2 didn't run well then going back 2 years isn't going to help,

 

To answer your question though, generally speaking a driver is a driver, the only exception to this would be GPU drivers that use WDDM which can change with Windows version changes.

 

1 minute ago, starry said:

consumer windows 10 support channels do not take old hardware into account when they release updates, and can cause a lot of issues for certain people

Z170 isn't exactly old hardware though.

[starry]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

Z170 isn't exactly old hardware though.

oh, should have read their specs, oops

[Seyrren]

15 minutes ago, starry said:

consumer windows 10 support channels do not take old hardware into account when they release updates, and can cause a lot of issues for certain people

 

12 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

What were the issues you had?

 

Honestly, if 20H2 didn't run well then going back 2 years isn't going to help,

 

To answer your question though, generally speaking a driver is a driver, the only exception to this would be GPU drivers that use WDDM which can change with Windows version changes.

 

Z170 isn't exactly old hardware though.

Well my hardware ain't quite that old but all builds after the creator's update for me it just got worse and worse... Windows 7 works amazing right now, but it being old i'm limited with some of the activities i wish to pursue, like emulation, which is why i want to try out LTSC to use all DirectX 11 features (windows 8.1 is a no go since i got an RTX card and there's no RTX drivers for windows 8.1).

 

As for the issues with windows 10 pro post the creator's update i don't even know where to begin, frequent restarts at the worst times due to updates regardless of all of my settings which where supposed to limit updates (i tried all options, differ updates, group policies, registry settings). Antivirus (Defender) going berserk and deleting false positives even though i tried to disable it or used the exclusion method. Explorer slow downs and crashes, the thumbnail system getting screwed up, folder view settings getting messed up, various galge not working properly with new updates, had to give up on using my xonar at one point due to their damn updates, and much, much more, if i start giving all the reasons, with be here till morning really...

 

For me while i was positive about windows 10 till the creator's update in recent times it became nothing more then a nightmare...

 

 

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That said to answer my own question seems that most motherboard drivers are generic, and work between models, i compared a few common ones in size and they where identical.

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, Seyrren said:

 

Well my hardware ain't quite that old but all builds after the creator's update for me it just got worse and worse... Windows 7 works amazing right now, but it being old i'm limited with some of the activities i wish to pursue, like emulation, which is why i want to try out LTSC to use all DirectX 11 features (windows 8.1 is a no go since i got an RTX card and there's no RTX drivers for windows 8.1).

 

As for the issues i don't even know where to begin, frequent restarts at the worst times due to updates regardless of all of my settings which where supposed to limit updates (i tried all options, differ updates, group policies). Antivirus (Defender) going berserk, and deleting false positives even though i tried to dissable it or used the exclusion method. Explorer slow downs and crashes, the thumbnail system getting screwed up, folder view settings getting messed up, various galge not working properly with new updates, and much, much more, if i start giving all the reasons, with be here till morning really...

Might be worth grabbing a copy of 20H2 from Microsoft and doing a fresh install. Things can get a little messy after a few feature updates but usually, fresh installing the latest build makes everything work great again.

[Seyrren]

22 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Might be worth grabbing a copy of 20H2 from Microsoft and doing a fresh install. Things can get a little messy after a few feature updates but usually, fresh installing the latest build makes everything work great again.

I forgot to mention that between all of those issues there where fresh installs... the best i got out of it to run well was somewhere around 2 months until the next feature update forced itself in and ruined everything. That's why i'm sick of it (i'm pretty bitter on microsoft to, if they weren't such nazis when it comes to configuring your own damn computer things probably wouldn't be so bad, but no they have to shove all of their crap down your throat), and so i want to give 1809 a try.