We?ve been facing some troubles with the latest WDF co-installer v1.9 when trying to install our virtual COM port driver on Vista OS (x86 and x64). We had also verified this with a couple of other devices which use WDF co-installer v1.9 and the same installation error was reproduced. For example, this can be reproduced by overriding the default serial driver (which handles the default COM1 in any machine) with the WDF serial driver example (provided within the latest DDK 7600) which uses WDF co-installer v1.9.
It?s quite simple to reproduce the issue:
- Go to the ?Services? window.
- Stop and disable ?Windows Update? service.
- Override the default serial driver with the WDF serial driver example.
- An error saying ?Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device?.
- Driver cannot be installed.
Then I noticed that there are some dependencies with ?Windows Update? service so I followed the next steps:
a. Enabled the ?windows update? service in manual or automatic mode (it doesn?t matter which mode). Do not start the service.
b. Proceed with the serial driver override.
c. Now you will be able to install the driver.
d. Vista will ask to reboot the machine.
e. The COM port will be only available and properly installed after rebooting the machine.
Also, when doing the reboot after successful driver installation, the following messages while rebooting:
* Before rebooting: Configuring updates: Stage 2 of 3 ?
* After rebooting: Configuring updates: Stage 3 of 3 ?
Some additional inputs could be the following:
- It happens on all Vista distributions.
- It doesn?t happen on XP or Win 7.
- XP doesn?t have the ?Windows Update? service.
- Win 7 has ?Windows Update? service.
- And one very important: Whenever serial driver is installed on Vista, it always asks for a ?reboot?.
- When on Vista, if ?Windows Update? service is enabled (it doesn?t matter if it?s started or stopped) after the reboot, there are messages like: Configuring updates: Stage ?
- You can reproduce the issue with any WDF driver using WDF co-installer v1.9 under Vista OS.
I hope anyone can help me out to address this issue, since it?s not a good behavior for a WDF co-installer (it didn?t happen with previous version like v1.7 or v1.5).
Thanks and Best Regards,
Ismael