Tell HN: Microsoft has locked out a bunch of 3rd party Windows driver developers

[billziss]

I am an independent Windows driver developer and I am no longer able to update my existing drivers or submit new ones. The reason is that Microsoft has removed my access to the "Hardware" portion of their "Partner" portal. There are many others that seem to have the same problem. Most of us have submitted multiple support requests to Microsoft trying to rectify the problem, but without much success so far.

Here is a relevant discussion at a popular Windows driver developer forum:

https://community.osr.com/t/locked-out-of-microsoft-partner-center-driver-submission-page

It is not clear whether this is a new Microsoft policy or just a problem on their portal. Either way it effectively locks out multiple 3rd party drivers from the Windows kernel. Even if a developer has a driver with a critical problem such as a crash or CVE they are no longer able to update their driver.

I am posting here to raise awareness on this issue. My hope is that this is not a new Microsoft policy and someone within Microsoft will realize there is a problem and fix it.

[mburnicki]

I have the same problem. Maintaining a driver for specific PCI cards for many years, and could even submit new driver version to the Microsoft Hardware dashboard for attestation signing, but was recently locked out.

If I only try to open the "new hardware submission" dashboard page, I get a message "Access restricted".

After some discussion with Microsoft's AI agents, I could eventually open a support ticket, but even though the ticket mentions an "expected reaction of 8" (days, I suppose), there hasn't been a single reaction from Microsoft support for more than 3 weeks now.

[daviddever23box]

Do you submit drivers for WHQL certification?

What type of hardware is it?

[billziss]

My specific driver is an open source file system driver (WinFsp). This is a software only driver that requires attestation signing. There was a period a few years ago when Microsoft required WHQL testing for Windows Server (which I did), but they seem to have dropped this requirement.

The linked OSR thread has a lot of other driver developers including a lot of them maintaining drivers for hardware devices.

With Microsoft removing our access to the hardware section of the partner center, we are not able to submit drivers for either attestation or WHQL testing.