Minor Gripe: Please Sign Your Beta Drivers NVIDIA

[ViRGE]

So I noticed while installing the new beta drivers for Bioshock that a warning message came up about the drivers not being signed. Under XP this wasn't a big deal, but I'm using Vista x64 which requires that all drivers are signed (and MS is patching any workarounds). If I hadn't permanently disabled driver signing for now I would not be able to use their drivers, and some day I'm going to be unable to disable driver signing.

Signing drivers is cheap, a $500 certificate is good for a year and Vista only requires that the drivers are signed by the developer, not Microsoft(that's WHQL certification, it's different). If NVIDIA doesn't start signing them, then beta drivers for Vista x64 are going to be pointless once MS puts the latest fix in to a critical update. So please NVIDIA, spend the $500 and 5 minutes to sign your damn drivers.

 

[AmdInside]

I would rather write to Microsoft and ask them to stop forcing all this stupid crap down our throats. WHQL drivers are just as buggy as none WHQL drivers. It is more of an annoyance than a benefit. Since computer manufacturers can't place a "Designed for Windows blah blah blah" sticker on their computers unless all of the drivers are signed, it forces hardware manufacturers to waste time with this stupid WHQL certification process. The only thing I hate more than WHQL drivers is UAC. Thank goodness there is MacOSX. I use my PC for games and MCE and iMac for photography work and other misc stuff.

 

[n7]

Actually, i unintentionally disabled driver signing when i did a bunch of windows updates yesterday which killed the ddisable workaround again :frown:, & i could install the unsigned nV beta drivers.

It did prompt for me to say yes to installing the unsigned drivers (not UAC prompt), but it let me install them.

So i'm not quite sure the deal with that is.

Rivatuner & Core Temp absolutely won't work for me now, since for the second time, updates re-enabled driver signing permanently, yet nV driver still work unsigned?

 

[ViRGE]

AmdInside, you're confusing signed drivers with WHQL drivers. Drivers that are signed are just drivers where someone got a signing certificate from a CA (who does an identity check to make sure you are who you say you are) and used it to sign the drivers. This means that when you sign your drivers you can prove that said drivers came from you (as opposed to someone else), and that as an end user you can be confident someone is vouching for these drivers. WHQL is when Microsoft also signs the drivers saying they meet certain specifications, and yes I do think WHQL is pointless most of the time.

But getting back to the point, it would be nice if NVIDIA would take the marginal amount of effort required to sign their beta drivers so that they're always usable under Vista x64. The driver signing requirement is great for protecting against rootkits and malicious drivers, so I'd like to see companies like NVIDIA working with it, not against it.

Edit: n7, that's interesting. I definitely got the "this is completely unsigned" warning from Vista, and there's no security catalog with the drivers, so they can't be signed

 

[n7]

I got the unsigned warning, but it did install just fine.

Now that i think about it, i've seen the same message before when installing ATi/nV drivers back before i even knew how to disable it.

So apparently ATi/nV are allowed to get away with it, & others aren't?

 

[Sylvanas]

Clicking a box that says 'do you REALLY want to install these drivers' isn't such a big problem for me...

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Clicking a box that says 'do you REALLY want to install these drivers' isn't such a big problem for me...

neither me :! It isn't that i everyday upgrade my driver

 

[kullerhamPster]

Originally posted by: n7
I got the unsigned warning, but it did install just fine.

Now that i think about it, i've seen the same message before when installing ATi/nV drivers back before i even knew how to disable it.

So apparently ATi/nV are allowed to get away with it, & others aren't?

I just tried to install the Forceware Beta 163.44 (I also use Vista x64) and Vista showed me that dialog. I can't remember that I changed anything on Vista's configuration regarding driver signing - so I'm a bit confused why I can choose to install it. But as I chose "No", I don't know if the installation would have worked

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: kullerhamPster

Originally posted by: n7
I got the unsigned warning, but it did install just fine.

Now that i think about it, i've seen the same message before when installing ATi/nV drivers back before i even knew how to disable it.

So apparently ATi/nV are allowed to get away with it, & others aren't?

I just tried to install the Forceware Beta 163.44 (I also use Vista x64) and Vista showed me that dialog. I can't remember that I changed anything on Vista's configuration regarding driver signing - so I'm a bit confused why I can choose to install it. But as I chose "No", I don't know if the installation would have worked

it's just warning you that this could be some hacker installing something you do not want under a fake name. Also mentioning that signed drivers are safe, but it's your system so you can click yes anyway.

 

[BFG10K]

If they released monthly WHQL drivers like ATi this wouldn't be a problem.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
If they released monthly WHQL drivers like ATi this wouldn't be a problem.

That would be too logical.

It's much better having scores of beta drivers with issues than official releases every month :roll:

 

[kullerhamPster]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

it's just warning you that this could be some hacker installing something you do not want under a fake name. Also mentioning that signed drivers are safe, but it's your system so you can click yes anyway.

Yes, I understand the advantage of signed drivers, but what makes me wonder is that I thought Vista x64 requires all kernel-mode drivers to be signed (unless you turn that enforcement off). So I had expected that it simply rejects the installation of an unsigned driver without asking.

 

[sharad]

Could it be that Nvidia doesn't want to risk a signed binaries because the beta drivers don't go though WHQL testing, automated testing I assume for buffer overflows and everything? If a security issue is found in a kernel mode signed driver it could be targeted by spyware. Granted that security issue can be found in WHQL drivers as well but it's less likely.

 

[kullerhamPster]

I just tried to install the driver (i.e. choosing to install it when I was warned that it ist not signed), and indeed, it worked fine. The device manager now also reports that it's not signed (when having a look at the driver-tab of the video card), but it seems to be loaded and working.

So now I'm completely confused about the requirement for signed drivers on Vista x64. This ist definitely not what I would have expected...

Edit: I forgot to mention that I did not uninstall the previous driver, but I don't know if this has anything to do with it. I guess it has not

 

[kullerhamPster]

Oops. Sorry for posting that twice. I had JavaScript disabled, which seems to lead to strange board behavior

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

I'll never get Vista at this rate. Protecting the computer user from him/herself? Sounds like i, Robot.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
I'll never get Vista at this rate. Protecting the computer user from him/herself? Sounds like i, Robot.

*rolls eyes*

do you realize how many trojans are embedded in unsigned drivers on XP?

 

[kullerhamPster]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
I'll never get Vista at this rate. Protecting the computer user from him/herself? Sounds like i, Robot.

*rolls eyes*

do you realize how many trojans are embedded in unsigned drivers on XP?

But that's more a problem of users installing drivers from everywhere on the internet. If you only use drivers provided by the manufacturer of your hardware (and download them from the respective site), getting an infected one is quite unlikely (except for the download server was hacked or the download was modified by some kind of man-in-the-middle attack, both very unlikely cases in my opinion).