Operating systems can also do CPU microcode updates. Linux does, I think Windows does also.
I’m curious to know how that works in practice.
I assume (wrongly, perhaps) that each CPU has different microcode. Even within Intel, I’d have assumed that each member of the huge family of CPUs would each have had unique microcode.
If that assumption is bad, read no further. But if it is true....
...an Engineer putting together a Linux or Microsoft update package does not ‘know’ the CPU upon which it will be installed. Does the update package then carry all microcodes for all conceivable CPUs, or is each update tailored to the user’s hardware and built on request, or does it ‘phone home’ for microcode during the install, once the CPU is known? Or something else?