3 ms·

How do the microcode upgrades get delivered? Do people have to manually install them, or do Intel have some way to force a microcode update over the Internet?

• jakeogh 7y ago
  It's distribution specific, but generally it gets loaded at every boot. It's not permanent. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Microcode https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Microcode
• maddyboo 7y ago
  For Arch Linux, see: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microcode https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microcode
• microcolonel 7y ago
  On Windows it's handled in Windows Update, and maybe there's a way to disable loading the new microcode. On Linux, it's explicitly provided to the kernel by whatever userspace you have. On Arch, for example, it's in a separate package called intel-ucode. Some board firmware loads updated microcode when it's updated. It has to be loaded at each boot by software in order to change.
  • Darkstack 7y ago
    On windows you can disable / enable some of the mitigation via the registry. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4072698/windows-server-speculative-execution-side-channel-vulnerabilities-prot https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4072698/windows-ser...
• raxxorrax 7y ago
  On many newer CPUs, the memory for the update is volatile, so it gets rewritten at every power-on. That could be done by your motherboard or the kernel of the OS you are using.
• d1zzy 7y ago
  Multiple ways: - through BIOS updates (so the motherboard OEM has to release a BIOS update for that model that includes newer microcode and you'd have to download/apply the update) - through the OS: both Linux and Windows can and do load ucode at boot, depending on the version/configuration/etc