Nvidia updates through windows update

are these updates genuinely the latest nvidia driver updates are is it better to manually update from the website?

They are generally stripped out versions, so do not have the same control panel features of the versions available from the Nvidia web site. They drive the screen well enough, however they do not provide you all the options to change the settings with your card. As they have to be approved by microsoft they are often out of date, however they are the stablest version so if you want the computer for light web work or office stuff, use those drivers.

Don't think I've ever found them to be the latest full driver, always best to go direct to the Nvidia website.

As the above really - they are usually not the most recent drivers, so for stability with recent games go direct to nVidia. However the patch process gets proper testing at Microsoft, so they install into the windows framework nicely.