How To: Load Unsigned Drivers on Windows 7

We did some guerrilla research all over the Internets and found a hackalicious workaround that'll get your rig up and running in no time flat. Have at our full tutorial below:

We've broken up this method into two parts. The first part deals with actually loading the unsigned drivers, while the second deals with getting them to be accepted and working.

As a disclaimer, we highly suggest sticking with signed drivers whenever you can. This is only a last resort if you have 90% of your computer up and running, but have been hammering your head against the wall trying to get your hardware to work in the new OS.

Part 1: Loading Up the Unsigned Drivers

This for some can be straight forward. For others, make sure you grab your tech buddy and let him/her walk you through this:

1. Open Windows 7.
2. Press Win+R keys together to open the run dialog box and type: gpedit.msc
3. Expand the folders in order or - - - .
4. On the right, you will see a icon , double click that 5. Click button at the top, and at the bottom to ignore any signature check. 6. Hit Apply, OK and Close everything. 7. Reboot.



Now the computer will load any drivers anytime.

This solves loading the driver. We still found Windows 7 would not allow the drivers we loaded to run. Which brings us to...

Part 2: Running Loaded Unsigned Drivers

We found a neat program that will allow the unsigned drivers to work. Basically, it's a method that allows testers to test drivers without going through the dramas of getting a signature from Microsoft directly. The program's called, "Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider 1.3b" or "dseo13b.exe". You can either Google it or use the link we provided in the tutorial below.

The load instructions are simple. As usual, TURN OFF UAC through Control Panel (or just type "UAC" in the search bar).

1. Run dseo13b.exe program.

2. Click "Enable test mode". This allows Windows 7 to be used for testing drivers.

3. We rebooted to be safe, and you will see a faint "Test mode" print in the corner.

4. Now, open Device Manager and find the location of the unsigned drivers that won't work, by expanding Properties and Driver Details. Your looking for something like C:\Windows\System32\drivers\xxxxxxx.sys

5. Run dseo13b.exe program again.

6. This time select "Sign a system file" and put in the location of the file you found in Device Manager.

7. Repeat for all files in question then close. You have now assigned a signature to those files.

8. Reboot.



If all goes well, you will have your unsigned drivers working perfectly and all is well. Just remember that the Testing mode text will never go away until you run the program again to disable it (which kinda sucks since it'll basically disable the driver once it goes back to normal). So, either grab a copy that's officially digitally signed or keep the Testing mode on until the time comes.

We hope this little guide helps! If you have any questions, just shoot us a comment below.

[Via TheHotFix]

Yes, everyone install unsigned drivers, and then blame "micro$oft" when your OS crashes, as is the popular thing to do.

If your drivers are unsigned, there is probably a pretty good reason for that.

Since microsoft doesn't make the hardware their software runs on, they don't write most of the drivers you will use. People ignorantly blamed Vista's problems on microsoft when in reality a lot of it was an onslaught of shit drivers. How long did it take nvidia to get proper vista drivers out again?

So microsoft wisened up and had enough with subpar coders giving their OS a bad name. Previously, only the 64-bit flavor of windows required drivers to be signed by micrsoft. With 7, microsoft is requiring ALL drivers to be signed by them, to prevent the kinds of epic crashes anti-MS fanboys drool over. Required driving signing is intended to provide you with a better computing experince. I think you guys should make the disclaimer in bold and in red with flashing lights and unicorns. It's a pretty bad idea to do this.

posted by marm0lade on November 16th 2009 at 4:15pm
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Then there are those like me who had all their drivers up and running except the wireless card (grrr.. Linksys!), which basically made the computer useless after the upgrade. This method got my driver to work perfectly with no issues whatsoever.

Obviously, when Linksys decides on their convenience to release a signed driver (though their current vista drivers work just fine for me right now in testing mode), I'll be switching immediately to it and all is shall be well. Happy OS. Happy users.

posted by ekoshyun on November 16th 2009 at 4:24pm
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Oh my, I actually really want to upgrade from vista to 7 just to try, I find no problems whatsoever with the latter. But Im going to school via the web and this is the only computer I have, I cant deal with bugs right now!

posted by chikizz on November 16th 2009 at 7:20pm
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I just went through a nightmarish driver install on win 7 64bit, and once again miscrosoft just solidified even more my love for mac.

posted by Jose A on November 16th 2009 at 11:43pm
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