It gets worse. For some reason InTune managed machines I deploy at work don’t even work HARDWIRED. It only works if you use a USB C to Ethernet adapter. No, it is not missing an Ethernet port. It just doesn’t work for absolutely no reason. I just did a remote InTune training, and had to download drivers from Dell’s website, extract the exe (lol), put it on a flash drive, and install it manually before I could even log into Windows.
If you don’t have an Ethernet connection, fairly regularly
It’s at least better than the Vista days where it didn’t even have an Ethernet driver consistently, and you had to download your Ethernet driver from another computer 🤷♂️
When I tried to install Windows 10 2 years ago on my mini PC it tried to install wifi drivers but failed. Wifi only worked after manually downloading and installing the driver. Various Linux distros were plug and play and wifi worked out of the box.
You’re trusting unsigned, reverse engineered, and amateur developed drivers in ring 0
Up until 2025 most of the software for controlling your periphery like mice and RGB controllers used a driver called WInRIng0 which had been discontinued for years. Its author even actively discouraged people from using it, but due to convenience and cost cutting it was bundled with software left and right.
I rather trust a Linux kernel developer developing a WiFi driver than some shady manufacturer selling cheap mice and bundling it with closed-source software that never gets an update.
When I tried to migrate to W11 a number of years ago, the wireless drivers weren’t installed automatically (plus major issues with my GPU and lots of other quirks). They’ve probably gotten better since then, but I wouldn’t know (after about three hours of trying to get basic things working, I tried loading Mint on a thumbdrive and everything worked out of the box, including things like function keys and adjustable keyboard backlighting–I never went back).
There are some cheap wifi cards that have sketchy drivers that aren’t automatically installed, and my gigabyte motherboard only came with drivers for Windows 11 for its on-board WiFi, so while windows usually gets the drivers fine there are not-even-that-obscure situations where it just absolutely does not.
No, the windows updater usually grabs them just fine.
But if you do a clean install using the image from microsoft, then it’s very likely it won’t have a working wifi driver until you run updates. Which you know… it needs the internet to do.
That pissed me so off, when i had to reinstall a bunch of notebooks at work… they didn’t even have an ethernet port, so i had to dig out some docking station from the trash pile in the server room.
not the case for most new hardware, especially laptops. Sure you get a cheap laptop and its probably gonna be fine but an enterprise laptop with the latest and greatest… totally a coin flip
I have had to deal with it on so many models in recent years its not even funny. (IT system admin who never uses the default install of Windows)
Not in 11 that i’ve seen but drivers used to be ridiculous on windows. The funny thing is it was even worse on linux for a hot minute. I remember borking my nic multiple times on slackware 3 and having to hoof it to my friend’s house to download a driver way back in olden times. I learned a fuckload about linux and networking during those years breaking things.
Oh, what was that thing called, ndiswrapper or similar, where you downloaded the windows versions of the drivers and then wrapped them up and hoped they worked, and good luck with power saving or resume from sleep.
Don’t get me wrong; amazing that it worked even as well as it did, but glad we’ve got native drivers now. A small step forward every day and soon you’ll have gone a long way.
Haven’t used Windows in a hot minute, do you actually have to install WLAN drivers manually there?
It gets worse. For some reason InTune managed machines I deploy at work don’t even work HARDWIRED. It only works if you use a USB C to Ethernet adapter. No, it is not missing an Ethernet port. It just doesn’t work for absolutely no reason. I just did a remote InTune training, and had to download drivers from Dell’s website, extract the exe (lol), put it on a flash drive, and install it manually before I could even log into Windows.
If you don’t have an Ethernet connection, fairly regularly
It’s at least better than the Vista days where it didn’t even have an Ethernet driver consistently, and you had to download your Ethernet driver from another computer 🤷♂️
When I tried to install Windows 10 2 years ago on my mini PC it tried to install wifi drivers but failed. Wifi only worked after manually downloading and installing the driver. Various Linux distros were plug and play and wifi worked out of the box.
‘works on my machine’ -one of the most ignorant arguments.
The same model Motherboards can have different sound, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth chips.
You’re trusting unsigned, reverse engineered, and amateur developed drivers in ring 0 which can possibly damage your hardware and firmware.
It’s not something to casually recommend people do.
Up until 2025 most of the software for controlling your periphery like mice and RGB controllers used a driver called WInRIng0 which had been discontinued for years. Its author even actively discouraged people from using it, but due to convenience and cost cutting it was bundled with software left and right.
I rather trust a Linux kernel developer developing a WiFi driver than some shady manufacturer selling cheap mice and bundling it with closed-source software that never gets an update.
When I tried to migrate to W11 a number of years ago, the wireless drivers weren’t installed automatically (plus major issues with my GPU and lots of other quirks). They’ve probably gotten better since then, but I wouldn’t know (after about three hours of trying to get basic things working, I tried loading Mint on a thumbdrive and everything worked out of the box, including things like function keys and adjustable keyboard backlighting–I never went back).
Had the issue, so yes.
The easiest way to solve it was to not dual-boot. :-)
There are some cheap wifi cards that have sketchy drivers that aren’t automatically installed, and my gigabyte motherboard only came with drivers for Windows 11 for its on-board WiFi, so while windows usually gets the drivers fine there are not-even-that-obscure situations where it just absolutely does not.
No, the windows updater usually grabs them just fine.
But if you do a clean install using the image from microsoft, then it’s very likely it won’t have a working wifi driver until you run updates. Which you know… it needs the internet to do.
That pissed me so off, when i had to reinstall a bunch of notebooks at work… they didn’t even have an ethernet port, so i had to dig out some docking station from the trash pile in the server room.
most network and wifi chips made before the spin of windows are supported by built-in drivers.
Deleted by author
not the case for most new hardware, especially laptops. Sure you get a cheap laptop and its probably gonna be fine but an enterprise laptop with the latest and greatest… totally a coin flip
I have had to deal with it on so many models in recent years its not even funny. (IT system admin who never uses the default install of Windows)
Isn’t this more of a “to cheap to make the device fall back to a low performance emulating-generic” type of issue?
Not in 11 that i’ve seen but drivers used to be ridiculous on windows. The funny thing is it was even worse on linux for a hot minute. I remember borking my nic multiple times on slackware 3 and having to hoof it to my friend’s house to download a driver way back in olden times. I learned a fuckload about linux and networking during those years breaking things.
I definitely remember the times when wlan was a PITA on Linux : )
Oh, what was that thing called, ndiswrapper or similar, where you downloaded the windows versions of the drivers and then wrapped them up and hoped they worked, and good luck with power saving or resume from sleep.
Don’t get me wrong; amazing that it worked even as well as it did, but glad we’ve got native drivers now. A small step forward every day and soon you’ll have gone a long way.