What does “not signed” means?

[orlydb]

Hey, I would like some clarification about it please.
The reason is that I tried running SDIO on a Windows 11 machine (I haven’t used Windows 11 to this day, only “using” it now because someone asked me to check it) and I got no drivers listed which is weird because the only drivers installed in this laptop have been from 2 years ago when the system was Windows 10 (before the user upgraded) and I used indeed SDIO, so I went and checked “worse match” and then I got a big list of driver updates but all of them had “(not signed)” in their description, what does this means? I haven’t installed anything yet because as far as I know Microsoft went full gatekeeper with 11 asking for TPM and whatnot.

The notebook does has Secure Boot and TPM enabled.

So my question is basically the title. I want to know if there will be any problems installing not signed drivers in Windows 11 being a so closed system, and better yet, why the drivers say not signed? Aren’t all available drivers on SDIO signed because they are official ones?

Thank you!

[Glenn]

signed refers to the code signing certificate. this is a security method used to ensure the software hasn’t been tampered with since it was compiled by the developers. As an example, right click on the SDIO exe file, select Properties then Digital Signatures you will see my digital certificate. This tells you the exe hasn’t been modified since it left me. The same is true for driver executables. If the driver isn’t signed, either the OEM didn’t sign it or it’s been modified since it left the OEM. In the majority of such cases, it’s just the OEM hasn’t bothered to sign it but then on the other hand….

So you have to ask yourself, “Am I feeling lucky today?”

Also keep in mind, OEMs are still catching up with Windows 11 and in most cases, a Windows 10 compatible driver will be ok.

You might also try right click on the SDIO System Information panel and select Windows 10 version.

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