5 ms·

Wouldn't it be better if the system knew to assign less priority to Microsoft-signed drivers?

Someone 10y ago
No. I need some cases, the MS provided driver must take precedence over the vendor one. As a comment to this article says: "I have a USB 3.0 controller in my system where Microsoft took over control of the driver, probably due to the hardware manufacturer going under. Anyway, the driver Microsoft provide is signed by the same certificate as they use to sign other drivers for Windows. But in this case, you would want the Microsoft provided driver to win out over any manufacturer provided driver because they are all broken in some way." Of course they could have separate signing certificates for 'overriding' drivers, but that would be just as much a hack as using the time stamp.
- Alupis 10y ago
  Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't you just choose not to install the vendor driver in this case? It's your system, and if you chose to install the vendor driver (even if it's broken/old), it should use it... no?
  - emeraldd 10y ago
    You might not have a choice, say the vendor provides software (other than the driver itself) that is required to use the product and forces the driver install at the same time as the software.
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    There's very few drivers that need to be manually installed anymore. Even fewer that require the absolute deletion of the previous version by the user. It's all automated now.
    - thehardsphere 10y ago
      "Very few" can still be hundreds of devices that people still have to use.
      - bitJericho 10y ago
        Even those few almost always use an installer. Nobody's manually installing drivers except the hardcore enthusiast, whom this hardly affects.
        thehardsphere 10y ago
        Tell that to my Fortune 500 client who has to support hardware devices that were discontinued 11 years ago For regulatory compliance reasons.
  - Someone 10y ago
    If you don't trust your OS vendor to make such choices for you, why do you trust their OS? Consider a case where - a user installed a top of the bill vendor driver. - vendor goes out of business. - driver has enormous security issues/doesn't work with some newer hardware. - Microsoft releases an improved driver. Should Windows: - assume the user knows better and keep using the vendor driver? - ask the user whether it can remove the outdated vendor driver (and any older one(s) still present), so that the Microsoft-provided one can take over? (even if the vendor-provided driver targets a broader range of USB devices?) - do what it does now? I think the number of people who would rightfully want to still pick the vendor drivers can easily be counted on the fingers of one hand, so my $0.02 is on the last. All others would be baffled by any question asked and accidentally might pick the wrong answer.
- yellowapple 10y ago
  "Of course they could have separate signing certificates for 'overriding' drivers, but that would be just as much a hack as using the time stamp." It'd be far less of a hack, IMO. At least that particular hack wouldn't be totally subverting something with as much predefined semantic meaning as a timestamp. Besides, it could actually fit into Microsoft's organizational structure reasonably well. The team that maintains default drivers could have one signing key, and the team that maintains override drivers could have a different signing key. Same deal for Microsoft teams/departments that develop/maintain drivers for Microsoft hardware projects (like Microsoft-branded HIDs).
- cprecioso 10y ago
  That makes sense, but then, I think it's even more of a no-brainer: set a property in the driver metadata that says it can be overridden.

No. I need some cases, the MS provided driver must take precedence over the vendor one. As a comment to this article says: "I have a USB 3.0 controller in my system where Microsoft took over control of the driver, probably due to the hardware manufacturer going under. Anyway, the driver Microsoft provide is signed by the same certificate as they use to sign other drivers for Windows. But in this case, you would want the Microsoft provided driver to win out over any manufacturer provided driver because they are all broken in some way." Of course they could have separate signing certificates for 'overriding' drivers, but that would be just as much a hack as using the time stamp.

Alupis 10y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't you just choose not to install the vendor driver in this case? It's your system, and if you chose to install the vendor driver (even if it's broken/old), it should use it... no?
- emeraldd 10y ago
  You might not have a choice, say the vendor provides software (other than the driver itself) that is required to use the product and forces the driver install at the same time as the software.
- bitJericho 10y ago
  There's very few drivers that need to be manually installed anymore. Even fewer that require the absolute deletion of the previous version by the user. It's all automated now.
  - thehardsphere 10y ago
    "Very few" can still be hundreds of devices that people still have to use.
    - bitJericho 10y ago
      Even those few almost always use an installer. Nobody's manually installing drivers except the hardcore enthusiast, whom this hardly affects.
      - thehardsphere 10y ago
        Tell that to my Fortune 500 client who has to support hardware devices that were discontinued 11 years ago For regulatory compliance reasons.
- Someone 10y ago
  If you don't trust your OS vendor to make such choices for you, why do you trust their OS? Consider a case where - a user installed a top of the bill vendor driver. - vendor goes out of business. - driver has enormous security issues/doesn't work with some newer hardware. - Microsoft releases an improved driver. Should Windows: - assume the user knows better and keep using the vendor driver? - ask the user whether it can remove the outdated vendor driver (and any older one(s) still present), so that the Microsoft-provided one can take over? (even if the vendor-provided driver targets a broader range of USB devices?) - do what it does now? I think the number of people who would rightfully want to still pick the vendor drivers can easily be counted on the fingers of one hand, so my $0.02 is on the last. All others would be baffled by any question asked and accidentally might pick the wrong answer.
yellowapple 10y ago
"Of course they could have separate signing certificates for 'overriding' drivers, but that would be just as much a hack as using the time stamp." It'd be far less of a hack, IMO. At least that particular hack wouldn't be totally subverting something with as much predefined semantic meaning as a timestamp. Besides, it could actually fit into Microsoft's organizational structure reasonably well. The team that maintains default drivers could have one signing key, and the team that maintains override drivers could have a different signing key. Same deal for Microsoft teams/departments that develop/maintain drivers for Microsoft hardware projects (like Microsoft-branded HIDs).
cprecioso 10y ago
That makes sense, but then, I think it's even more of a no-brainer: set a property in the driver metadata that says it can be overridden.