Mysterious WPD driver is installing on Windows PCs, triggering errors

[Karlston]

Nobody seems to know what the new driver does, so it's best to avoid the update for now

Credit: Thinkstock

 

Remember the problem users were experiencing in December with weird Windows 10 drivers appearing out of nowhere? Well, it seems to be happening again.

In December there were complaints about a spate of drivers with names like these:

 

INTEL – System – 1/4/2013 12:00:00 AM – 0.0.0.1

Intel – System – 3/13/2016 12:00:00 AM – 11.0.0.1010

 

INTEL – System – 8/19/2016 12:00:00 AM – 10.1.2.80

INTEL – System – 10/3/2016 12:00:00 AM – 10.1.1.38

Realtek Semiconduct Corp. – USB – 5/17/2016 12:00:00 AM – 10.0.10586.31225

 

Once installed, the drivers wreaked all sorts of havoc. Last month, Raymond Chen at Microsoft explained the sudden appearance of very old drivers, but that may or may not be what’s causing this latest problem.

 

Now lots of people are reporting that their Windows systems are suddenly installing this driver: 

 

Microsoft - WPD - 2/22/2016 12:00:00 AM - 5.2.5326.4762

 

Amiel Spencer on the Microsoft Answers forum says the installation triggers an Error 0x800f0217.

 

In case you missed the memo, the MSDN blog has a description of WPD drivers:

Microsoft Windows Portable Devices (WPD) enables a computer to communicate with attached media and storage devices. This system supersedes both Windows Media Device Manager (WMDM) and Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) by providing a flexible, robust way for a computer to communicate with music players, storage devices, mobile phones, and many other types of connected devices.

Microsoft provides several drivers for standard protocols and devices, including Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP), Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) devices, and Mass Storage Class (MSC) devices.

It’s looking like déjà vu all over again. For reasons unknown, Microsoft has suddenly released a new driver that may or may not be beneficial for your computer.

 

Until we get additional information or a report about beneficial side effects from installing this driver, I strongly suggest you avoid it. If you’ve already installed the driver, follow the instructions on AskWoody.com to roll back a bad driver update. If you haven’t installed it and are using Windows 10, consider hauling out wushowhide to make sure you don’t get stuck.

 

This would be a great use for the “Include driver updates when I update Windows” option in the Win10 Settings app and in Group Policy, but I’m not convinced that either setting will prevent this particular driver from being installed.

 

Thanks to AElMassry for the heads-up.

 

Discussion continues on the AskWoody Lounge

 

Source: Mysterious WPD driver is installing on Windows PCs, triggering errors (InfoWorld - Woody Leonhard)

[steven36]

Good Job Microsoft  this is why i disabled  driver updates on my Intel box as soon i installed windows 10 along time ago and got them from Dell  They was spiting out Windows update errors from the start. What good is it too do any updates now?  i will be testing creators update sometime next month i guess, time to reformat my pcs as soon .as there's a sign off build out. My Windows 10 Redstone  version 1 DVD  will become a Frisbee like the other 2 DVDs with windows 10 i have are . It's not Linux were i need live updates to update most of my apps all the time.    

[psyko666]

Installed this WPD update without any problems so far..

[steven36]

56 minutes ago, psyko666 said:

Installed this WPD update without any problems so far..

All you have to do is go too device manger  and put the old one back in if you get errors from a driver .but WPD is for windows 10 mobile device  in  95% of cases it's not needed because no one uses windows mobile no way. Did you check to see in device manger did it overwrite  the old one in some cases  drivers that not compatible  want install ?

 

I'm a pro at botching up PCs  with drivers this PC I'm on now i blew it up with Driver Easy It forced installed a AMD driver were i could no longer boot up and restore failed  so I had to use a image  to fix it lol. If you dont like fixing PCs best not fix whats not broke driver updates are meant to fix problems you're having with the old ones and many times they break you're OS be it Linux or Windows lol.

 

When Windows 10 1st came out they gave the wrong amd driver on this PC so after I installed windows 10 i had to turn off driver updates use DDU uninstall the ones from M$ and install amd-catalyst-15.6-beta just too have  hardware acceleration  They fixed it in TH2 lol.

[steven36]

6 minutes ago, 0bin said:

About Drivers, some programs like Iobit try to do other things, and then I deleted them, the Driver Easy screw many pc I have with 10. From now I only use the Snappy Driver Installer, because I can compare info better way, or manufacter page. I stay away from any commercial program, until something really good will born.

Well my AMD PC is old  and Microsoft has working display drivers for it now so i just install those and disable driver updates after i  install windows i  get my others ones from AMD now.  i just use 3rd party driver installers for my non AMD drivers now.

[steven36]

4 minutes ago, 0bin said:

How did you disable the Driver updates from Microsoft?

I only saw Downloading drivers first time after formatting, and then they diseappear for me, maybe the programs I use to block their things, block also that ^-^

if you use O&O shut up you can disable it with it , but there's a hidden setting to turn them off if you dont.

 

 

[SPECTRUM]

these drivers are only installed if you are using generic drivers, but if you have your drivers already updated and not generic, then this drivers does not appears in Windows Update.

[steven36]

9 minutes ago, SPECTRUM said:

these drivers are only installed if you are using generic drivers, but if you have your drivers already updated and not generic, then this drivers does not appears in Windows Update.

What WPD stands for is Windows Portable Devices

Quote

Windows Portable Devices (WPD) provides an infrastructure to enable multifunction devices that store various media and non-media content. An example of a multi-function device is a cellular phone that contains a built-in zoom camera (a digital camera function) and supports music synchronization and playback (a portable media player function). Additionally, WPD makes these devices accessible from a Windows-based computer.

WPD is supported on Windows XP with Windows Media Player 11, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

The object-based Device-Driver Interface (DDI) enables convergent devices, initially focused on smart storage devices such as portable media players, digital still cameras, and mobile phones. Along with a DDI, WPD implements a class driver solution for the following standard protocols and transports:

• Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) over USB, IP, and Bluetooth
• Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) over USB, IP, and Bluetooth
• Mass Storage Class (MSC) over USB

 

 

Were not on XP  no more were we  download drivers for everything we plugin it depends on the PC vendor witch drivers they have a lot of  stuff like my  Dell  they have all kinds of stuff but my Gateway the drivers for it not updated since Windows 8 so I sure cant install those on Windows 10 lol.

[steven36]

12 minutes ago, 0bin said:

That thing MTP to do it basically, drag and drop apk through wire to your Android phone. Anyway I was sure was installed because previously "yesterday" I dragged an .obb and and an .apk into phone memory, 

maybe wasn't updated, really don't know

Yes this driver can break things like  mp3 players  . doing firmware upgrades from windows for other devices and other stuff if its working I would leave alone if its not id update it  . Always when i clean install windows i check the device manger for driver updates as well if they break anything you can slip the old one back in lol.

[Karlston]

A follow up from Woody...

Details emerge about mysterious Windows WPD driver

By foisting an outdated WPD driver on Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 systems, Microsoft has wreaked havoc on some USB connections

Credit: Shutterstock

 

Overnight sleuthing by German Windows guru Günter Born has shed light on the mysterious driver I talked about yesterday. We now know that the driver that appeared on many Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 systems wreaks havoc on USB connections for some smartphones, including Android and Lumia phones.

 

Born writes in his blog that found the patch in the Windows Update Catalog—not an easy task given the catalog’s anemic search capabilities — and dug into the update file. The “Microsoft - WPD - 2/22/2016 12:00:00 AM - 5.2.5326.4762” patch contains drivers for MediaTek Android devices. MediaTek, based in Taiwan, provides chips for a huge variety of phones. This “new” driver is from Shenzhen Diadem Technology Co.

 

Specifically, Born says:

The .inf files shipped within the CAB file specifies that this update supports the following drivers:

• Android ADB Interface
• Android Composite ADB Interface
• Android Bootloader Interface
• Android USB Driver

Other .inf files contain information about MTP protocol support via WPT driver.

What to make of the alphabet soup? In a nutshell, Windows Portable Devices (WPD) drivers allow Windows “to communicate with music players, storage devices, mobile phones, and many other types of connected devices.” WPD is a smorgasbord, containing many different drivers of different types.

 

The Android Debug Bridge (ADB) driver, contained in WPD, is the universal Android USB driver – plug an Android device into your computer and ADB does the talking. The Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) driver, also included in WPD, lets Windows get into the files on Android devices.

In this case, a bad ADB or MTP driver may have problems communicating with a phone plugged into your PC, a tablet, or an external hard drive – anything that speaks Android.

 

But that is not all! Oh, no. That is not all. (Apologies to Dr. Seuss.)

 

Born goes on to describe:

 

The package also contains outdated USB2Ser drivers (with inf files that contain comments from 2011). Also an RNDIS-over-USB host driver for Intenet Sharing device comes with an .inf file dated 2011…

In this Microsoft Answers forum thread a user reported update error 0x800f0217 – but I have seen similar reports. The users should be glad that the installation fails

Why is Microsoft suddenly foisting this outdated sack of drivers on perfectly healthy Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 systems? Beats me—and Microsoft isn’t saying. But it’s a lot like the “INTEL – System – 8/19/2016 12:00:00 AM – 10.1.2.80” drivers that caused so many problems two months ago.

 

I’ve seen reports that the driver update appears as optional, so it won’t automatically install on Windows 7 or 8.1 PCs – you have to check the box next to the driver in Windows Update in order to install it. But Windows 10 customers aren’t so lucky, as Win10 installs everything it sees.

 

What to do if you suddenly can’t get your Android devices working with Windows? My advice from December still stands:

If you can’t get back into your computer, your best bet is to roll back to a restore point, if you have one. (There’s a good explanation by Walter Glenn at How-To Geek.)

 

If that doesn’t work, try rolling back the bad driver. Here’s how.

 

Step 1. Get into Device Manager. There are quick ways to do that in each Windows version, but it’s simplest to just type Device Manager in the Start search (or Cortana) box.

 

Step 2. Find the peripheral with the bad driver. In this case, you’re probably looking for a phone, tablet, or external hard drive. Double-click on it.

 

Step 3. Roll back. Click the Driver tab then click the button marked Roll Back Driver. You’ll likely have to restart your machine.

 

If that doesn’t fix the problem, follow the procedure again, but in Step 3 click Update Driver and pray that Windows can find a driver for your computer that works.

 

With Windows 10, the updating takes place automatically when you “check” for updates – so to be sure, run wushowhide to block any pernicious driver updates.

I used to recommend using Windows 10’s “Include driver updates when I update Windows” in Settings/Windows Update/ Advanced options to block driver updates, and/or the “Do not include drivers with Windows Update” group policy. I don’t recommend those any more. The first option disappeared months ago from the Settings applet in Windows 10 version 1607. The second option is still available in gpedit (Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows Update), but I don’t think it works the way most reasonable people would expect. 

 

I’m still not sure why some Windows systems see this driver update and others don’t. Without any documentation from Microsoft, we’re spitting in the wind.

 

Commiseration continues on the AskWoody Lounge.

 

Source: Details emerge about mysterious Windows WPD driver (InfoWorld - Woody Leonhard)

[Karlston]

Who says Microsoft (still) has a serious Quality Assurance problem?

 

A lot more folks now...

[Karlston]

Looks like Microsoft have (finally) pulled it...

Microsoft pulls botched WPD driver

After pushing a bad driver onto PCs through Automatic Update, Microsoft posts the complex series of steps necessary to remove it

Credit: Shutterstock/Gunnar Pippel

 

The mysterious driver that wreaked havoc after appearing on many Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 PCs on Tuesday has been repudiated and pulled by Microsoft.

 

The driver, listed as “Microsoft - WPD - 2/22/2016 12:00:00 AM - 5.2.5326.4762,” appeared as an optional (unchecked) entry in Windows Update for Windows 7 and 8.1. While Win7 and 8.1 customers had to check the installation box before the driver would be installed, it was a different story for Windows 10 users -- any patch that arrives in the Windows Update queue gets installed.

 

Microsoft’s statement on the Answers Forum says:

An incorrect device driver was released for Windows 10, on March 8, 2017, that affected a small group of users with connected phones or portable devices.  After installation, these devices are not detected properly by Windows 10, but are affected in no other way.

We removed the driver from Windows Update the same day, but if the driver had already installed, you may still be having this issue.

The official guidance goes on to recommend that users first try to roll back to a Restore Point. As you probably know, Restore Points aren’t automatically created in Windows 10 – the feature has to be turned on manually. If you’re using Win7 or 8.1, the Restore Points are probably available.

 

If you use Windows 10 and haven’t taken steps to block forced updates, you may need to follow “Method 2 Part 2” of Microsoft's instructions to ensure the driver doesn’t automatically re-install itself.

 

Forced Windows updates: The gift that keeps on giving.

 

Discussion continues on the AskWoody Lounge.

 

Source: Microsoft pulls botched WPD driver (InfoWorld - Woody Leonhard)