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XDDM drivers not supported for Windows 8

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XDDM drivers are not supported for Windows 8 and will not install or run on Windows 8.

If the graphics hardware is not supported by a Windows 8 in-box graphics driver, Windows 8 will run the MSBDD until a Windows 8 compatible driver is installed from Windows Update or an OEM/IHV site.

Note   The vendor can develop a Windows 8-compatible display-only driver for the hardware if it is a server product.

Table 1 Driver Upgrade Experience in Windows 8 summarizes graphics driver migration behavior during a Windows 8 upgrade and clean installations. In this table, ITB = in-box, and OTB = out-of-the-box; this is an OEM or IHV retail driver package or Windows Update package.

Table 1 Driver Upgrade Experience in Windows 8

Driver used in Windows 7 Scenario Windows 8 in-box coverage Resulting initial driver in Windows 8
Win7 OTB Driver / Win7 ITB Driver / No Driver / XDDM Driver Upgrade ITB Driver Support Win8 ITB Driver
Win7 OTB Driver Upgrade No ITB Driver Support Win7 OTB Driver
Win7 ITB Driver / No Driver / Blocked OTB Driver / XDDM Driver Upgrade No ITB Driver Support Win8 MSBDD
N/A Clean ITB Driver Support Win8 ITB Driver
N/A Clean No ITB Driver Support Win8 MSBDD

In cases where the Windows 7 graphics driver itself is not migrated, any IHV or OEM value-add components from the Windows 7 graphics driver package, such as control panels and OpenGL support libraries, can persist after a Windows 8 upgrade installation. This happens because the Windows 8 installer cannot know that these value-add components are associated with the Windows 7 retail or OEM driver package. These value-add components might not function properly in the absence of the rest of their driver package.

IHVs should harden these value-add components to simply exit in such cases. In the rare cases where the value-add causes problems, the specific value-add components can be blocked from migrating by the Microsoft compatibility team. In some cases, an IHV's Windows 8 in-box driver removes the value-add component on upgrade. This is up to the IHV.

Some retail and OEM Windows 7 graphics drivers are intentionally structured to prevent their installation on Windows 8. Windows 8 might try to migrate such a driver according to the rules above, but it would fail to install on Windows 8, resulting in the use of the MSBDD.

An IHV can create a unified driver package that is a WDDM 1.2 driver on Windows 8, but that appears like a WDDM 1.1 or 1.0 driver on previous Windows releases.