Yet another reason why I won't be buying any HP laptops, but I wasn't going to anyway so I guess nothing changes. Unfortunately when BIOS updates are pushed through Windows Updates it doesn't ask. It just applies it when you restart. For that reason alone they should be totally liable for this.
None are perfect obviously but in many years of business and personal use I have not had any real issues with Dell computers. We've had minimal issues with Toshiba laptops in the past as well but I have not kept up with them in the last few years. We've also had some ASUS laptops that have been fine, though I have found their desktops unreliable.
HP staff allegedly blames Microsoft's Windows Update as firmware bricks ProBooks - Neowin More minus points for trying to blame Microsoft for it.
Why would anyone want to update the BIOS in the first place, seems way too risky for me. And I didn't know these BIOS updates get installed automatically, what the hell? Yet another reason not to use Windows Update.
Some of them fix critical security issues, some correct errors in the original code. There are valid reasons to update. It is not without risk but you can say that about anything. It is up to you to decide if that risk is worth taking. In most cases I run the update. If it does something worthless like changing the text description of a setting, I would skip it.
I have updated my BIOS once, years ago. That was a BIOS update that was required to support a newer CPU that I bought. But I would never want it to automatically update.
OK I see, so when you buy a new CPU you might have to update your BIOS, didn't think of that. But I also don't see myself ever buying a new CPU. I've only bought RAM and a GPU to replace defective ones. Luckily I never had to deal with a defective HDD/SSD.