Solid State Drives (SSD) are fast becoming the norm for many users to place their Windows install onto, but because prices for the larger drives are still quite expensive, many users have smaller capacity drives. If you have a smaller SSD or your Windows boot drive or partition isn’t that large, you need to watch every Gigabyte that goes onto it or its space can fill up pretty quickly. Using tools such as TreeSize or SpaceSniffer to find which folders are taking up precious space on your drive might show that the Installer folder located in Windows is one of them.
If you check the Installer folder in Windows (C:WindowsInstaller), you will most likely find a lot of MSI and MSP files in there taking up a few gigabytes of your hard drive, with some people even reporting 10GB+. Do note that the Windows Installer folder has a hidden and system attribute. To see the folder, you will need to select “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and uncheck “Hide protected operating system files” from the Folder Options in Control Panel.
Viewing the Property details of those MSI and MSP files in the Windows Installer folder could show that they are connected to software currently installed on your computer and others most probably from software you have uninstalled which you don’t use anymore. The good news is some of the MSI and MSP files are orphaned and no longer needed which you can safely delete. The big problem is identifying them because just deleting any MSI or MSP file you choose is a bad idea as they might be required for updating, patching or uninstalling existing applications.Below is an Office 2003 MSP file from an old installation.
Use an old Microsoft Utility
One of the old tools that could do this was MsiZap which was developed by Microsoft. The tool is available with The Windows Installer Clean Up Utility (Msicuu) which is basically a frontend for some of MsiZap’s commands. Microsoft discontinued both MsiZap and Msicuu some time ago after saying they were causing too many issues, but many users still use MsiZap with some success. Download the Windows Installer Clean Up Utility and then extract it with 7-Zip to use the MsiZapU.exe.
Open a Command Prompt, type MsiZapU.exe G and press enter. The G command tells the program to remove any orphaned cached Windows Installer data files. While testing we got an error on both Windows 7 and XP similar to the following although it did say it had cleared some orphaned files out.
MsiZapInfo: Performing operations for user S-1-5-21-598190838-2299067166-971484642-1000
Removing orphaned cached files.
Error enumerating Products key for S-1-5-21-598190838-2299067166-971484642-1000 user. Error: 6.
FAILED to clear all data.
Removing orphaned cached files.
Error enumerating Products key for S-1-5-21-598190838-2299067166-971484642-1000 user. Error: 6.
FAILED to clear all data.
MsiZap is definitely a tool to be used with caution because Microsoft usually don’t pull utilities unless there’s a valid reason to do so.
Windows Installer Unused Files Cleanup Tool
The Windows Installer UnUsed Files Cleanup Tool (WICleanup) by KZTechs is able to scan for orphaned MSI and MSP files in the WindowsInstaller folder and offers you an option to delete them from the comfort of a graphical user interface. For scripts and command line usage, WICleanup also includes a command line version in the archive (WICleanupC.exe).
All you need to do is extract the downloaded ZIP file, run the WICleanupUI.exe and click the Scan button. All the entries that show in the window are orphaned files and manually check the boxes for what you want to delete. Although it has no option to automatically select all files for deletion, you can use the Shift key to multi-select, i.e; click the first file, hold Shift and click the last file, then click one of the selected tick boxes. It would have been useful if this tool offered an option to backup the unused files instead of deleting them in case of any potential problems. Note the the website is in Chinese.
Download WICleanup
Deleting the Unused MSI Entries Manually
Before you simply go into the C:WindowsInstaller folder and start deleting files on your own to free up some space, there is a way to determine which files are orphaned and should be safe to delete. Because the patch files still registered will have a corresponding entry in the registry, those that are missing aren’t necessary anymore.
Heath Stewart over at blogs.msdn.com wrote a small vbscript a few years back that checks the system for registered patch files, and lists those that are. This way you will be shown the files that you SHOULD NOT delete from WindowsInstaller as they are the ones still in use, those not in the list are safe to remove
Download WiMsps VBScript
Do note that this download isn’t the original vbscript found on the website as that has an annoying OK popup on every registered entry it comes across which can be very annoying because there’s often loads of them. We’ve made a minor modification to output the registered entries to a text file instead.
Don’t forget, these are the currently registered patch files and the ones to not touch. We would recommend you don’t manually delete files from the Installer folder anyway without some experience, and moving them to another folder just in case a problem occurs is more preferable.
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How To Disable Windows Installer Module
Patch Cleaner is the obvious solution here. I freed up 32.4 gb with only a few clicks! I suggest using the “Move” feature rather than just deleting them right away, then restarting your PC to see if everything’s working fine. If so, then it should be safe to delete them permanently!
ReplyGreat article, thank you! Been struggling for months to try and clean up more space on my 120GB SSD, with only 15GB remaining on it. Used WiCleanup along with WiMsps. Whilst WiCleanup identified all of the potential files, it also had those on the list which WiMsps said to keep. So it’s worth checking if you’re going to run these that you don’t accidentally delete those files which are still required. It takes a bit of time, but worth the effort. I managed to free up 25GB of space.
ReplyThanks for this info. I went with WICleanup. I have been fighting with low disk space for months. I had 40 gig in the installer folder. Lots of clicking but I have space to work now
ReplyWindows version failed on installation. WiCleaner worked flawlessly. Cleaned up 29 GB in 10 minutes. Thank you for your informative article!
ReplyThank you very much sir, really good and helpful article with clear instructions.
I used Windows Installer Unused Files Cleanup Tool and it works fantastic!
I found 1008 unused files taking up 50,8GB
…imagine, I had to hit yes and ok for every single file to get rid of it!
Absolutely worth it!
Many thanks
ReplyI used Windows Installer Unused Files Cleanup Tool and it works fantastic!
I found 1008 unused files taking up 50,8GB
…imagine, I had to hit yes and ok for every single file to get rid of it!
Absolutely worth it!
Many thanks
My experience mirrored that of Maros. Exactly. Very helpful and straightforward instructions. I used Windows Installer Unused Files Cleanup Tool. A bit clunky (because I had to click “yes” and “ok” for each entry, which was a pain) – but in the end I recovered about 20GB on a 256 GB solid state drive, so it was definitely worthwhile. Thank you.
ReplyLol I like how the main article has no mention of Patch Cleaner, but the comment section have hijacked it by only talking about Patch Cleaner.
I ended up downloading Patch Cleaner. Thanks comments section~
ReplySimple to explain really, Patch Cleaner came out long after this article was written.
Sadly looks like it’s been abandoned with no updates since early 2016. Patch Cleaner was actually only in development for about 9 months.
ReplyPatchCleaner worked like a charm, 20 GB cleaned. I moved the files to an external hard drive just in case but damn!
ReplyWICleanup was a rather awkward and clunky to use, but it definitely did find a lot of orphan files on my machine and allowed me to delete them. Thanks for this article.
ReplyPatch Cleaner found 45 GB of orphans! I’m waiting to see how well it works before trying it on my other computer which may have as much as 80 GB of orphans!
ReplyWhy all the cumbersome solutions?
Purchase only: IObit – Advanced System Care 11
In one hour it deleted 67GB from my XP.
ReplyPurchase only: IObit – Advanced System Care 11
In one hour it deleted 67GB from my XP.
Your solution is vastly more cumbersome than all of these, they are free and only take a matter of seconds to find what they are looking for. Your solution is paying for software and then waiting an hour for it to complete its task!
ReplyAfter using Patch Cleaner be prepared for an extremely long boot. I think mine is busy now for half an hour or so, though not stuck (yet…)
ReplyHi all, I have an old Surface and every time I try to run the Patchcleanup or WICleanup it comes back with ‘Not allowed – please use an application from the store’.
I have had to really scour my brain to remember all my old VAX commands when using the command prompt, so any suggestions will be most gratefully received. Cheers.
I have had to really scour my brain to remember all my old VAX commands when using the command prompt, so any suggestions will be most gratefully received. Cheers.
Reply
PatchCleaner! So glad to have found this, the app is very simple and straight forward, within 5 minutes of pressing ‘download’ I had freed up 33 gb of space from Installer folder. For nearly a year I have been working with a margin of about 3 GBs of space on my hard drive, it was so frustrating! To have this problem solved is fantastic.
ReplyUsed Patch Cleaner, very straightforward, saved 26 GB. Well pleased.
ReplyPatch Cleaner saved 38.8 GB unused space
homedev.com.au/free/patchcleaner
Replyhomedev.com.au/free/patchcleaner
Just ran PatchCleaner and it found 22.68GB of orphaned files! Thank you!
ReplyYup yup yup PatchCleaner did it for me as well!~
The good part of it is, if you don’t trust it…you can just move the files with it, and put them back if you notice any issues.
ReplyPatch Cleaner moved 27GB of 39GB out of my installer folder on my SSD (111GB) what a waste ….
Bravo and 1000x”THANK YOU” for the tool!!
ReplyBravo and 1000x”THANK YOU” for the tool!!
just used Patch Cleaner to move 32 GB of orphaned installer files. Total disk usage was 61 GB, meaning over half my files were garbage!!! Good job Patch Cleaner!
ReplyUp until a few hours ago, my SSD drive (of 120GB) was down to around 29GB. After doing some research, I realised that the Windows Installer sub-folder was the main culprit (28GB in size!). However, it took me hours of research (and banging my head against a brick wall), before stumbling across the positive feedback here for PatchCleaner.
After running PatchCleaner, I was able to reclaim 22GB of free space (with all the orphan files being transferred to my second internal SSD drive). I was absolutely amazed!
In addition to this, I also managed to reclaim over 5GB, simply by deleting all the files in the Installer2 sub-folder of my NVIDIA Corporation folder (it’s advisable to do this BEFORE downloading the latest available graphics driver). Before, the sub-folder was 6GB in size but is now slightly over 500MB.
In total, I’ve managed to literally DOUBLE the amount of free space on my C: drive. Now, I have just under 60GB of available space.
So, a massive thanks to the creators of PatchCleaner and to those who left encouraging feedback.
ReplyWARNING- decided needed to comment after seeing so many people removing the bulk of their windows folders. These programs will only work on 32bit installations (even then I suspect their +ve positive rate would be high). Windows uses symbolic links so when you browse the system32 & wowsys64 folders, you are really seeing the files in winsxs folder. They are not duplicates. Delete one the other disappears.
ReplyHere is the Patch Cleaner thing over 1 year the comment is so i give up the comment an up !!!
From “John” :-)
There is now a 4th option! Patch Cleaner.
I created this 100% free software. It cleans the windows installer directory with one easy click.
If you don’t trust it, you can use the move action to move the orphaned files to another folder until you are satisfied it hasn’t done anything wrong.
homedev.com.au/Free/PatchCleaner
ReplyThere is now a 4th option! Patch Cleaner.
I created this 100% free software. It cleans the windows installer directory with one easy click.
If you don’t trust it, you can use the move action to move the orphaned files to another folder until you are satisfied it hasn’t done anything wrong.
homedev.com.au/Free/PatchCleaner
Patch Cleaner – Huray!
Thank you for your support, commenters!
ReplyThank you for your support, commenters!
Patch Cleaner – 10 minutes and 21 GB cleaned. Several thousand files.
ReplyWow! I’ve been going through my 256GB SSD looking for ways to recover space. Did a search on my C drive for “size:gigantic” and came across all these huge .msp (Windows Installer Patch) files. I’m new to Windows so I googled what these things are and came across this post. Patch Cleaner has found 31.43 Gb of extra space. I’m backing the orphaned files to an external HD just in case but that is a huge amount of space. Fingers crossed my laptop will continue to work properly.
ReplyWICleanupUI lists many MSI and MSP’s but they ARE NOT Orphans, at least on a Windows 7 machine. I manually looked at the properties for a number of them and they are for programs that are listed as installed, and truly are installed. By removing these files the system becomes somewhat ‘corrupt’, at least if you are trying to do a repair or uninstall later. I would NOT use it.
MSIZap has similar problems, so be careful
ReplyMSIZap has similar problems, so be careful
Used PatchCleaner today to free 32 GB of a total 39,4 GB in my windows installer folder (moved to external backup drive). What is left corresponds to installed applications.
PatchCleaner was very user friendly and worked like a charm (used version 1.4.2.0 on Windows10).
Thanks to “homedev”!
ReplyPatchCleaner was very user friendly and worked like a charm (used version 1.4.2.0 on Windows10).
Thanks to “homedev”!
Just moved 28 GB to another drive using Patch Cleaner. Now I just have to verify that everything continues to work normally. This seems to be a good tool to address the problem with the c:windowsinstaller folder filling up with installation related files that are no longer needed.
ReplyPatch Cleaner rocks! My used-to-be bloated C: drive is Now 7GB lighter!
ReplyJust run “WICleanupC.EXE -s” in an Admin Console. Super easy. Thanks.
ReplyTried PatchCleaner today. Found over 500 orphaned files (20.9 Gb). Successfully moved them to another partition. If no future problems arise, it’s a lifesaver :)
ReplyPatch Cleaner is not compatible with XP. :(
ReplyUsed Patch Cleaner and saved 19GB of space! Thanks!
ReplyUsed PatchCleaner, freed up 16,9 GB! Windows 7 and Office 2013 were 2 years and 8 months ago installed and I’ve used both important and optional Windows Updates. This is just sick.
Replypff, “up to 10gb” mine is at 24gb now, need to get that crap away :P
tried Patchcleaner now, v 1.2.0.0, uncertain if it was crap spammed, and in reality a virus, reported, 367 – 15.69gb of orphaned files
TY!
ReplyNever clean for 4 years on win7, it saved me 11gb … just safe my life!!
ReplyPatch cleaner is just perfect , It cleared 10 GB
ReplyPatch Cleaner worked perfectly! Cleared up 14gb or orphaned msp in a snap!
ReplyMany thanks John.
PatchCleaner worked a treat for me.
Great work!
ReplyPatchCleaner worked a treat for me.
Great work!
The WICleanupUI.exe is a bit old and been compromised. Panda AV instantly quarantined the WICleanupUI.exe installer download at Download.com as a 4/5 level virus. When I pulled it out of quarantine it was again flagged as a virus. I deleted the file. I tried to download it elsewhere but had same result. I looked a bit online and a few feel the original file has been swapped out for something evil from China since 2007. Please re-evaluate this file as it has been compromised.
ReplyWhat is your evidence that WICleanup has been compromised? All the online virus and malware scanners say it’s not malicious and many people have used this tool since release in 2007 without any issue whatsoever, myself included.
Just because one a/v detects something as malicious doesn’t mean it actually is, every antivirus gets false positives, especially with tools that change or delete files in the Windows folder.
I’ve just scanned WICleanupUI.exe with Panda AV 2016 and it says the file is clean, either it was a false positive and been rectified or you don’t have the original version of the file.
ReplyWow patch cleaner works like a charm. cleared up 15 gigs of space. wish microsoft would include this with windows or atleast delete the old files after they’re done with them.
ReplyTried PatchCleaner, saved 14 GB on my SSD. Very easy to use. Thanks
ReplySo, I used Patch Cleaner, and my windows folder had 51GB, the software clean up 26GB on my SSD, I recommend it, Thanks John.
homedev.com.au/Free/PatchCleaner
Replyhomedev.com.au/Free/PatchCleaner
There is now a 4th option! Patch Cleaner.
I created this 100% free software. It cleans the windows installer directory with one easy click.
I created this 100% free software. It cleans the windows installer directory with one easy click.
If you don’t trust it, you can use the move action to move the orphaned files to another folder until you are satisfied it hasn’t done anything wrong.
homedev.com.au/Free/PatchCleaner
ReplyThank you so much! You safed me 14 GB (!!!) on my SSD.
The “move” function is perfect – helped my to evaluate that a) I really don’t need the files anymore and b) you made a great job.
Best,
Mark
ReplyThe “move” function is perfect – helped my to evaluate that a) I really don’t need the files anymore and b) you made a great job.
Best,
Mark
14GB later, thanks for the software. Moved the files to another HD for now as a test to see if my system decides to break without them. Hopefully delete soon.
Replythx so much, works like a charm!
ReplyThanks a bunch!
ReplyThis was amazing! Great help! Saved me tonnes of space! Was tired of having a 3 GB pc that used to hang! :)
Guys, I have executed almost all the steps.
Try the WICleanup tool. I almost saved 3 GB of space through this one!
Although it’s annoying that the tool makes you accept for each file you delete, this is super saver!!
Be careful. :)
ReplyI didn’t bother with those tools, I just made a Junction and moved the Installer folder (taking up 8+ GB) to another drive. I wouldn’t move the WinSXS folder tho but the Installer folder doesn’t look like it needs to be on a fast SSD. So far it works.
Copy Installed folder to, say, D:Installer
rename the C:WindowsInstaller
open up CMD as admin ->
type:
mklink /J C:windowsInstaller D:Installer
Replyrename the C:WindowsInstaller
open up CMD as admin ->
type:
mklink /J C:windowsInstaller D:Installer
Greg, I would like to take your advice but keep getting unrecognized command error (tried mklink and ln). I am running Windows XP on a very old laptop and I am not very savvy, do you have any suggestions for me?
Reply
Sorry GEORG…stinkin auto-correct
ReplyYou can use “Junction” instead of mklink: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx
ReplyThanks a lot mate. I have a very small SSD, so these files occupying it were eating almost 3 Gs of valuable space. Junction worked. Kudos!
ReplyJunction worked great! Thanks!
ReplyWhat about recreating the Installer and winsxs directories on another drive and creating junctions in the original locations?
ReplyThank you, this saved me as my System Volume Information directory was 20+ GB of space….
ReplyIf you have another drive permanently installed in your machine, and uses NTFS, you can use a directory junction to have the content of c:windowsinstalled stored at the other disk. Tested to work on my Windows 7 machine with windows update, but have not tested going back to a windows restore point.
Quick command summary was like this I think.
mkdir d:windows
mkdir d:windowsInstalled
d:
cd windowsinstalled
attrib +s +h Installed
c:
cd windows
attrib -s -h Installed
ren Installed Installed.ORG
mklink /J Installed d:WindowsInstalled
mkdir d:windowsInstalled
d:
cd windowsinstalled
attrib +s +h Installed
c:
cd windows
attrib -s -h Installed
ren Installed Installed.ORG
mklink /J Installed d:WindowsInstalled
now copy all the stuff in Installed.ORG to c:WindowsInstalled, and all should be in order.
Best regards
Per Gunnar Hansø
ReplyPer Gunnar Hansø
At this point I wish I did the rebuild due to time constraints.
A PC was brought to me today with a full 250GB hard drive. Nothing in the standard spots like users and such but I was curious so I checked the local apps hidden. Nothing unusual there either. I thought this was a little weird and took the pc under a mutual assumption “Meh must be a virus” But I was curious.
So I ran dir /s and manually parsed some data when I found the beast known as C:WindowsInstaller with a behemoth amount of data in it. Roughly 200GB or data. 28k entries inside of the file and I’m still scanning.
Bumping Byte to Bits! This is crazy I thought. Anyway I knew it was windows updates failing. Looking over everything it has been failing every day since 2011.
Anyway I hope the tool works (WICleanup) and doesn’t cause any adverse issues.
ReplyThat’s mighty impressive I’d say! And only today I found an old Microsoft post from 2012, claiming that they will try doing something with this… Three years ago now.
I hope sth will be done in Win 10 with that….
By the way, there’s a sweet freeware tool that is helping me a lot. Would’ve saved you all the poking around, called WinDirStat. It’s got graphic interface, showing what occupies space. I’ve found a dozen (really, 12) nVidia patches, one after another, each 200 mb in size – and the Installer folder, 2 G in size – and a lot of other stuff – thanks to it. I really recommend checking it out.
ReplyI hope sth will be done in Win 10 with that….
By the way, there’s a sweet freeware tool that is helping me a lot. Would’ve saved you all the poking around, called WinDirStat. It’s got graphic interface, showing what occupies space. I’ve found a dozen (really, 12) nVidia patches, one after another, each 200 mb in size – and the Installer folder, 2 G in size – and a lot of other stuff – thanks to it. I really recommend checking it out.
A little time has passed but I wondered if anyone else had this issue after using the WICleanup utility. After deleting about 4.5 GB of MSI files etc. after a reboot, Microsoft Updater finds over a 100 new updates (Windows 7 Pro). Many of the undates have date stamps going back to 2012.
Does one simply ignore those or what? I had just done an update check so I know none of these were necessary prior to deleting the Installer files.
ReplyYou don’t need to resort to cli to select all/multiple files in WICleaner. Just group select then click in any of the selected files check box. All will become checked. (Use shift-click 1st & last file for all files). Delete away. My installer dir was 7GB & the app determined 3.8GB not required. 2.5GB were AMD/Nvidia tech demos but some of these were recent patches for MSOffice, so be wary in case you ever need a repair install…
ReplyThanks for this info… Is your modified VBS script no longer available?
ReplySorry, it went missing from our server, it’s been uploaded again and is back now…:)
ReplyThat idiotic WICleanupUI app forces me to click Yes and Ok to delete on every single file. Why would you have the option of selecting thousands of files with Shift/scroll/click if you have to Ok every single deletion individually? Completely retarded. F’ing japs.
ReplyI also have the same problem. clicking yes for each file followed by ok was painful. I found the solution as follows:
goto wicleanup directory run wicleanup commandline version with -s (silent) option. It will delete all the orphaned files without any further prompt.
Replygoto wicleanup directory run wicleanup commandline version with -s (silent) option. It will delete all the orphaned files without any further prompt.
How is that done exactly?
ReplyWorked like a charm. Thanks ;]
ReplyThanks… not only did running from command line work… it took mere seconds. Thank you for the great tip! My folder was about 7GB and now is only 1.7GB. 5GB of wasted space.
ReplyKZTECHs.com is in Chinese
ReplyIt is but the program is in English, just translate the page or click a download button on the right hand side of the webpage.
Replyi had an installer folder that was 55GB of a 71GB hard drive (old server) Thanks a TON for this!
Reply“KCleaner” is a good tool for cleaning Unnecessary Junk !
CCleaner + Kcleaner = Clean PC :P
CCleaner + Kcleaner = Clean PC :P
Red orchestra 2 stg 44. For Registry there is “Registry Reviver”.
ReplyWorking on a friends computer. She had 94.4 GB in this folder, leaving her short on space with only a 150 GB HDD. THX a Million!
ReplyThanks. Will check. My C:WindowsInstaller (on SSD) is 18.6GB.
ReplyI just run WICleanupUI.exe. Got a long list of files with total 1.4GB. Deleted them all.
C:WindowsInstaller in now just 95MB (deleted 18GB ?), but when checking the size of free space on drive C:, it hasn’t changed at all.
ReplyC:WindowsInstaller in now just 95MB (deleted 18GB ?), but when checking the size of free space on drive C:, it hasn’t changed at all.
Are you sure your original folder size was 18GB??? You have to install a hell of a lot of software to get anywhere near that size Installer folder.
Raymond and I have both just tested WICleanup again and it worked fine on my Win 7 64bit and his Win 7 32bit deleting what it said it would.
ReplyRecovered 4GB using WICleanup. Thanks :)
ReplyThis is most useful. This is a file folder I had not investigated till now and find it 2.5 GB in size.
ReplyJust as usual, a good tweak to improve Windows 7 !!!
Thanks for the tip. !
ReplyThanks for the tip. !
Thanks.
Replythanks Ray!
The WICleanup app could use a select all button -.-
I got also problems with the:
– “ProgramDataMicrosoft” folder (2,25GB)
– “ProgramDataPackage cache” folder (1,82GB)
(4GB is alot for a small ssd ;) )
ReplyThe WICleanup app could use a select all button -.-
I got also problems with the:
– “ProgramDataMicrosoft” folder (2,25GB)
– “ProgramDataPackage cache” folder (1,82GB)
(4GB is alot for a small ssd ;) )
If 120GB is small for Windows 7, how about those with 30 or 80GB SSD?
winsxs is the space hogger and nonetheless, you have shown a way to saving 2GB of space from my SSD. Thanks for the post.
Replywinsxs is the space hogger and nonetheless, you have shown a way to saving 2GB of space from my SSD. Thanks for the post.
My Installer folder was about 7GB. Now it’s only 3GB. Thanks a lot Raymond! You’re awesome!!
ReplyThis is great Raymond. You are the best.
ReplyThe msp files on my XP Pro SP3 installation take up 623MB, msi files 200MB and mst files just 3MB. So the total size of the Installer folder is stil under a 1GB and I have been using this installation for quite some time now.
Windows 7 *again* turns out to be way too extravagant when it comes to consuming hard disk space.
ReplyLeave a Reply
64-bit versions of Windows 10 and 8 include a “driver signature enforcement” feature. They’ll only load drivers that have been signed by Microsoft. To install less-than-official drivers, old unsigned drivers, or drivers you’re developing yourself, you’ll need to disable driver signature enforcement.
With Windows 10’s Anniversary Update, Microsoft tightened the screws even further. But you can avoid the more restrictive driver-signing requirements by disabling Secure Boot.
Driver Signature Enforcement Is a Security Feature
RELATED:What’s New in Windows 10’s Anniversary Update
Before you begin, keep in mind: Microsoft isn’t just trying to make your life harder here. Driver signing enforcement ensures that only drivers that have been sent to Microsoft for signing will load into the Windows kernel. This prevents malware from burrowing its way into the Windows kernel.
Disable driver signing and you’ll be able to install drivers that weren’t officially signed. Be sure you know what you’re doing! You should only install drivers you trust.
Option One: Enable Test Signing Mode
Windows includes a “Test Mode” or “Test Signing” Mode feature. Enable this mode and driver signature enforcement will be disabled until you choose to leave Test Mode. You’ll see a “Test Mode” watermark appear at the bottom right corner of your desktop near your clock, informing you that Test Mode is enabled.
You’ll need to run a command from an Administrator Command Prompt to do this. To launch one, right-click the Start button or press Windows+X and select “Command Prompt (Admin)”.
Paste the following command into the Command Prompt window and press Enter:
RELATED:How Secure Boot Works on Windows 8 and 10, and What It Means for Linux
If you see a message saying the value is “protected by Secure Boot policy”, that means Secure Boot is enabled in your computer’s UEFI firmware. You’ll need to disable Secure Boot in your computer’s UEFI firmware (also known as its BIOS) to enable test signing mode.
Restart your computer to enter test mode. You’ll see the “Test Mode” watermark appear at the bottom right corner of your desktop and you’ll be free to install whatever unsigned drivers you want.
To leave test mode, open a Command Prompt window as Administrator once again and run the following command:
Option Two: Use an Advanced Boot Option
RELATED:Three Ways to Access the Windows 8 or 10 Boot Options Menu
There’s also another way to do this. You can use the advanced boot options menu to boot Windows 10 with driver signature enforcement disabled. This isn’t a permanent configuration change. The next time you restart Windows, it will boot with driver signature enforcement enabled—unless you go through this menu again.
To do this, get to the Windows 8 or 10 advanced boot options menu. For example, you can hold down the Shift key while you click the “Restart” option in Windows. Your computer will restart into the menu.
Select the “Troubleshoot” tile on the Choose an option screen that appears.
Select “Advanced options”.
Click the “Startup Settings” tile.
Click the “Restart” button to restart your PC into the Startup Settings screen.
Type “7” or “F7” at the Startup Settings screen to activate the “Disable driver signature enforcement” option.
Your PC will boot with driver signature enforcement disabled and you’ll be able to install unsigned drivers. However, the next time you restart your computer, driver signature enforcement will be disabled—unless you go through this menu again. You’re now free to install drivers that haven’t been officially signed by Microsoft.
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