[HN Gopher] It's 2022, and Windows 11's ISO lacks drivers for 20...
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It's 2022, and Windows 11's ISO lacks drivers for 2020 laptops
Linux and BSD has
Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Windows. I am a FreeBSD
"Ports" (packaging) committer. I own a HP Spectre x360 14" which
dual-boots Windows 11 and FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT. The Spectre is my
personal laptop. I recently reinstalled Windows. Laptops on
Intel's TigerLake platform use something called VMD which
supposedly helps with Intel's Optane SSD by taking over the NVMe.
Some laptops like Lenovo ThinkPad models allow you to disable VMD,
but my Spectre does not, so you need a second USB to sideload the
drivers. What else? There is no touchpad on the Windows installer.
Linux and FreeBSD both have had TigerLake touchpad drivers for a
while. I remember working with a developer to build FreeBSD
drivers for the VMD, and submitting a patch myself for TigerLake
touchpad, and both are in FreeBSD 13.0 from over a year back. Yet
neither are in Windows 11's ISO, even the latest "Visual Studio"
downloads, and on both Windows 11 Home and Enterprise. The
mainline Linux kernel has drivers for Apple M1 outside the GPU,
something that needs many man-hours of reverse engineering. Windows
11 doesn't even have drivers long committed in the Linux and
FreeBSD trees. While I can install Windows 11 on an 8th Gen
WhiskeyLake Spectre fine, touchpad and NVMe, it's a hassle on 11th
Gen hardware even when the hardware isn't even super new, 12th Gen
laptops are already out. I guess the wrong person at Redmond got
the note for the drivers :-). If someone reading this works at
Windows, please add drivers for Intel's VMD and TigerLake/AlderLake
touchpad.
Author : neelc
Score : 28 points
Date : 2022-06-02 18:17 UTC (4 hours ago)
| julienfr112 wrote:
| I installed windows on a NUC few yeras ago, after using (of
| course ...) linuxes on them, and was amazed to have to download
| driver on the intel site for the wifi card or whatever (hopefully
| I had ethernet cable lying around). It remind me my youth and
| windows 95 and the driver on CDs / disks that came with the
| hardware.
| vetinari wrote:
| Speaking of NUC... once I tried to install then-current LTSB
| release of Windows 10 on a Dawson Canyon NUC. The installer
| noped out, that there's no drive found (otherwise standard
| NVMe). The installer didn't accept Intel drivers from another
| USB either.
|
| "Normal" Win10 release installed fine. Just like any Linux
| distro I tried (fedora, ubuntu, centos). It was even capable to
| run as Hackintosh with a bit of effort. But not Win10 LTSB.
| throwaway019254 wrote:
| So you work for Microsoft and you figured out that the best way
| to notify your colleagues about these issues is to post on Hacker
| News?
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Yes
| yuhong wrote:
| breakingcups wrote:
| I guess this is a good demonstration of the rumored silo
| culture at Microsoft.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Windows drivers are regularly hundreds of megabytes if not
| gigabytes of vendor-applied value-added trash. There's no way
| they could cram them all into the OS. And it's never been the
| case that Microsoft tries to provide tons of drivers out of the
| box.
|
| Also, you're supposed to be using the machine's restore
| functionality. You're not supposed to install the OS your own
| way. It's been this way forever. You installing your own OS is
| not what Microsoft cares about.
| watermelon0 wrote:
| Most Windows drivers are quite small, in the single megabyte
| range. The majority of the download size is either the
| installer or optional utilities that are installed with the
| driver, but are not necessary for the device to work.
|
| Graphics drivers (and to some extend audio drivers) are
| exceptions to this.
| mindracer wrote:
| The vanilla Windows 10\11 ISO doesn't support Surface Laptop kb
| or trackpad during imaging so this doesn't surprise me at all
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| To be honest, Windows has always kinda sucked at including
| drivers in the default install. In the XP days it was normal for
| almost nothing to work properly after installing. VGA with basic
| VESA only, no network etc. Part of the job was figuring out where
| to get all the drivers from and how to get them onto the machine
| you were installing with half the hardware not yet working.
|
| Linux has always been great at long term support and if something
| was supported it would work out of the box. Though of course many
| things weren't supported at all. These days that has really
| improved.
|
| Thanks for your work on the ports collection. I use FreeBSD daily
| as my main machine.
| Sakos wrote:
| It's a really frustrating issue that took a bit of googling to
| solve. I have had a dedicated Windows install USB Stick with a
| copy of the required VMD files in a separate folder for months
| now. You don't need a second USB.
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(page generated 2022-06-02 23:02 UTC)