Hey all I have a piece of hardware (audio interface from Presonus) that requires a driver install that also handles firmware updates. this audio interface needs to be able to go between a windows 7 computer and a windows 10 computer freely. When i plug the unit into a windows 7 system after having used it on windows 10, the driver software won't allow use of the hardware until the firmware is DOWNGRADED. If i do the downgrade, i can use the system, but the firmware is stuck on something from 2020. if i move from the windows 7 system over to the windows 10 system, the driver sees the lower firmware and won't let you use the interface until you update the firmware to the latest version. going back and forth like this between firmware versions makes little sense, and from all i can tell, isn't actually needed outside of the fact that the proprietary driver software is forcing it. i've got to find ways of figuring out how to make Windows 7 appear to be Windows 10 to this driver program. anyone have any ideas? thanks!
It feels impossible to make a program believe that Windows 7 is Windows 10, and if it did, it would be unbelievable
If you are a leveling engineer, then you have a chance to decompile the code in search of a solution. But you should expect the audio device to use features that differ from OS to OS, so that's how it works. That is, even by "deceiving" a big risk of getting a non-working option. For example, if the device's firmware is associated with USB Audio 2.0 drivers.
There were ways to spoof newer versions of windows to make them look like older versions for a LONG time. The company won't talk about features hidden behind firmware, and none of their previous devices (that i am aware of, and i do own a couple) had hardware features locked behind OS versions. The device worked with both Win 7 and Win 10 up until a specific version of the controller software. After that version of the software, you couldn't install newer updates on Windows 7. The firmware version was included with that controller software, and there is some sort of check against the device itself for firmware version. if the firmware version doesn't match what the controller software has, the controller locks out until you "upgrade" the firmware, even if it is actually a downgrade. I can think of 3 potential attack vectors. 1. Spoof the newest controller software installer so that it thinks i'm on Windows 10/11 to allow it to install on Windows 7. - - Possible issues: - - - May not be able to figure out what check the controller software is looking for - - - The newer controller software may have removed elements that make the software incompatible with Windows 7. - - - Even if the spoof works, this will need to be permanent for the controller software, and newer versions of the controller software may "break" this way of spoofing. 2, Spoof the version of firmware checked against within the controller software that is compatible with Windows 7, allowing newer firmware to be "valid" on the unit. - - Possible Issues: - - - I don't know where/when/how this check occurs, so i don't know where to start looking for a file to spoof against. - - - this assumes something simple is used to check the version of firmware on the device versus the "allow list" of the controller software, such as a plain text file or a file name within the controller software. 3. Inject a newer firmware into the controller software that is compatible with Windows 7 so that any checks of the firmware pass - - Possible issues: - - - May not be able to find where the firmware is embedded (i did go looking a long time ago and it wasn't obvious) - - - Even if the firmware file is found, any checksum used within the controller software could potentially fail unless this is updated/recompiled. Out of all of them, spoofing the operating system version seems the most likely to be easily achieved, regardless of success. any ideas?
In a world where iTunes is required to update to the latest iOS release and you don't have a windows 10 machine to install the latest iTunes to install the latest iOS... I am also interested in a "hey just install the program this is windows 10" method
i have the same problem and asked about it before. https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/trick-itunes-into-installing-on-win-7.85566/#post-1743922 Have you personally found a solution ?
Tried VxKex to try to fool Steam, but it didn't lauch properly (and everything else I tried with it). I don't see the point of everything forcing us to upgrade to the worst Windows ever made, IMHO.
You may try latest version of my Slimdown10 tool. It changes Windows 10, so it looks and behaves very similar to Windows 7 (including Win7 Start Menu, bloatware removed, privacy restored, etc). And I agree, Windows 7 was most convenient Windows ever created. But it is increasingly harder to use, due to lack of most up-to-date API that is used by modern applications.
I used Win 3.0 for a short time, but I didn't notice what was wrong with it. I agree that Vista was awful as well. Didn't have the guts to try 2K and ME, so I went from 98SE right to XP.
Come on!! it was a joke. I knew people who ran setup.exe to fix it 6 days a week. Doing that today in a VM is matter of 1/2 minutes even in weak machines, but at the time was matter of 40 minutes in a 386 and more than an hour on 286 machines. Not that win31x was the mother of rock solid OSes, but at least was a bit more stable. MS use what Intel call tick, tock scheme. Here tick means betaish OSes win3/ win95gold (RTM)/ win98/ millennium+win2000/ vista/ win8/ win11 and "tock" where you get the real thing: win 3.1x/win95osr2x/Win98SE/XP/Seven/10 (hopefully win12)
I do not agree about Windows 2000. Windows 2000 SP0 could have been poor. But Windows 2000 SP4 was one of the best of OSes I have ever used. And I have used it for a long time (workstation and server). Same with Windows XP. It has been poor OS. But since SP2/SP3 it was very reliable.
Win2K Workstation lasted as the current OS, for little more than one year. XP lasted as the current OS for SEVEN years in theory, for more than a decade practically (business PC sold with the option to legally "downgrade" from Vista was a huge selling point). That timing should tell you more than what I could ever write Win2K started to be usable after sp2 which actually was a backport of features and fixes that XP had since the day 0. XP was a good OS since the release day, obviously had few quirks that needed to be fixed like any RTM OS, the lack of the firewall was important, but that was just something related to the WEB environment that started to have massive changes in the early 2000s not a design fault
It couldn't be any different given the long life XP had. But still the point is that XP SP "ANY" were moslty adeguate for the time they were released, while Win2K SP0/SP1 were buggy, rough and also practically unusable on the average machine of the time, not much different than Vista SP0 which initially was installed in machines thought for XP, with durons/celerons and 512MB of RAM. The practical effect was that the HDD never stop cruncing, because the swap and because a long list of "maintenance" tasks. A nightmare.
I am talking about day to day usage. Windows 2000 SP4 was faster (especially on low end machines) and at least as stable as Windows XP at that time. And its stability was no way comparable to poor stability of Windows 95/95osr2/98/98SE/Me. I used Windows 2000 for long time, and I remember it as very reliable OS until eventually support for it was dropped.
I'm talking about RTMs (SP0). Win2K SP4 was faster in some things, but incredibly slower in others. For one the boot time, in the machine I'm typing right now Win2K still takes more time than Win11(!!!). I understand that the past always looks rosier but we should try to take the nostalgia aside