windows 10 - How to Automatically update all devices in device manager

In Windows device manager it is possible to "manually" start an automatic update of a device. But its very tedious, each device has to be clicked (as it is not known if that particular device has an update available) - then the popups have to be clicked - and one has to wait for the online search to finish.

So I hoped there is some Powershell script being able to do this, or maybe a registry entry to have "Windows Update" taking care of that.

(Ehm yes, Windows does NOT automatically update ALL devices in device manager).

Answer

The article Script to install or update drivers directly from Microsoft Catalog contains a PowerShell script for doing what is asked.

The article includes good explanations of each part of the script. I reproduce below just the bare script with only minor changes (which I have not tested):

#search and list all missing Drivers

$Session = New-Object -ComObject Microsoft.Update.Session           
$Searcher = $Session.CreateUpdateSearcher() 

$Searcher.ServiceID = '7971f918-a847-4430-9279-4a52d1efe18d'
$Searcher.SearchScope =  1 # MachineOnly
$Searcher.ServerSelection = 3 # Third Party

$Criteria = "IsInstalled=0 and Type='Driver' and ISHidden=0"
Write-Host('Searching Driver-Updates...') -Fore Green  
$SearchResult = $Searcher.Search($Criteria)          
$Updates = $SearchResult.Updates

#Show available Drivers

$Updates | select Title, DriverModel, DriverVerDate, Driverclass, DriverManufacturer | fl

#Download the Drivers from Microsoft

$UpdatesToDownload = New-Object -Com Microsoft.Update.UpdateColl
$updates | % { $UpdatesToDownload.Add($_) | out-null }
Write-Host('Downloading Drivers...')  -Fore Green  
$UpdateSession = New-Object -Com Microsoft.Update.Session
$Downloader = $UpdateSession.CreateUpdateDownloader()
$Downloader.Updates = $UpdatesToDownload
$Downloader.Download()

#Check if the Drivers are all downloaded and trigger the Installation

$UpdatesToInstall = New-Object -Com Microsoft.Update.UpdateColl
$updates | % { if($_.IsDownloaded) { $UpdatesToInstall.Add($_) | out-null } }

Write-Host('Installing Drivers...')  -Fore Green  
$Installer = $UpdateSession.CreateUpdateInstaller()
$Installer.Updates = $UpdatesToInstall
$InstallationResult = $Installer.Install()
if($InstallationResult.RebootRequired) {  
Write-Host('Reboot required! please reboot now..') -Fore Red  
} else { Write-Host('Done..') -Fore Green }

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A general-purpose and powerful package is PSWindowsUpdate.

Here are a couple of tutorials on installing and using it :

The package adds the Get-WUInstall command (and others) with which you may get and install updates. The source of Get-WUInstall is also available separately from github.

Another example on its use is found in the article PS Script to automate Windows and MS Updates.