Windows 7 will check for a digital signature when installing new device drivers in order to verify the publisher of the software. Officially, Microsoft requires all drivers in Windows 7 64-bit to be digitally signed with the idea that this will maintain secure and stable operations throughout the operating system. Admirable goal alright but sometimes Microsoft’s hand holding can get in the way. There could be a situation where you need that unsigned driver installed yet the x64 version of Windows makes quite a stink.
Microsoft has provided a means to developers to by-pass the signing requirement, if only to facilitate internal testing of the publishers driver. Using this method, us users are able to disable the digital signature check and freely install any driver of our choosing. Standard disclaimers apply and this disabling of a security layer in Windows should only be done by power users a like.
- Launch a Command Prompt under Administrative privileges by clicking the Start Orb and searching for cmd.
- Right-click on the search result and choose Run as administrator. You’ll need to click through the UAC prompt.
- In the command prompt window execute the following two commands:
- bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
- bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON
- Restart your computer to disable digital driver signing in Windows 7.
I’ve tried these options on Evaluation version Win7 – 64bit build 7100 and it does not work. When I press F8 and choose to disable from there it does work. I’ve tried various changes to the instructions above and believe this should be an option by using bcdedit, but cannot accomplish – please advise if you have any other suggestions.