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Driver is not intended for this platform - how to get more details?

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Thursday, March 1, 2018 10:38 AM

Hi,

I have a general question for a concrete problem.

When Win10 states "Driver is not intended for this platform" during driver installation, how can I get more info on what exactly is causing this incompatibility?

Is there any log where I can get further information or can I run the driver installation in some sort of debug/logging mode to get some insight?

Just to clarify, it is not a simple 32bit vs 64bit problem, I get the error on either driver. Also the driver works fine on other machines with the same number of bits and Windows version.

Any suggestion on how to debug this further is much appreciated.

Best regards,

Andre D.

All replies (8)

Thursday, March 1, 2018 6:12 PM ✅Answered | 1 vote

this file should contain more info: %windir%\inf\setupapi.dev.log

Friday, March 2, 2018 5:35 AM ✅Answered | 1 vote

Hi Andre D,

You could use SetupAPI logs to verify the installation of a device and to troubleshoot device installation problems.

Here are some links for your reference.

SetupAPI Device Installation Log Entries:

/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/setupapi-device-installation-log-entries

SetupAPI Logging:

/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/setupapi-logging--windows-vista-and-later-

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Thursday, March 1, 2018 12:39 PM

I'm afraid you forget saying name of the problematic driver. What is it?

Ashidacchi

Thursday, March 1, 2018 1:06 PM

The driver is for a SimCom SIM5360E PCIE Modem, unfortunately I can't link to it as it is not publicly available.

My question aims in a more general direction though. I'm trying to get some advise on how to get more information on the nature of the incompatibility. The error message is rather broad. There has to be a more specific answer than "it doesn't fit", but I have no clue where to look for it.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018 8:46 AM

Hi, 

How’s everything going? Please feel free to give me any update.

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Friday, March 9, 2018 5:16 PM

Hi,

I'm sorry for the late reply, I've been rather busy this week.

tl;dr: Thanks a lot for the pointers, the log gave me additional information, as I wanted, and eventually helped me solve the problem.

long version, which may help someone in the same situation:

Unfortunately the log still didn't provide the reason for the incompatibility. It pointed me to the sys file which was causing the problem, but still didn't give specifics why it didn't fit.
Fortunately it still sent me down the right path. I looked further into the sys file and found out that there were two different versions floating around in the system, some of those being the 32bit version. This was quite a surprise, as I specifically deleted all 32bit versions of the driver to make sure the right ones are used. As far as I can reconstruct the following was done on the machine:

  1. Modem gets attached, which adds multiple devices
  2. "Install drivers" in device manager is selected and pointed to the general folder for the device drivers, containing both 32 and 64 bit drivers, windows automatically picks drivers and installation succeeds
  3. "Install drivers" for next device is selected, pointed to the same folder... but this time windows claims the drivers don't fit.
  4. Another attempt is done, this time directly selecting the correct 64bit folder/inf, still doesn't work.
  5. To create a clean slate and make sure windows doesn't get confused, all but the 64bit drivers are deleted and all the devices are uninstalled, checking "delete drivers" to make sure everything is gone.
  6. Furthermore pnputil is used to check if anything remained. It didn't show the driver in question.
  7. Another attempt to install the drivers is conducted, manually selecting the 64bit folder and inf. Same result, not compatible.

Despite all that, multiple instances of the 32bit sys file remained in the system folders... and were for some reason preferred over the compatible 64bit version in the folder manually selected during driver installation.

After manually deleting all file were it was possible (windows wouldn't let me touch the one in system) and using https://github.com/lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer to delete the last one, the 64bit drivers installed just fine.

I'm still confused why the file didn't get deleted when uninstalling the device and why pnputil wouldn't show it in the DriverStore.
Also it shouldn't be necessary to deploy third party tools to solve this, and windows shouldn't be fixated on using the incompatible sys file with the compatible one being readily available. No idea why windows is even using files from the system folder when the folder for the driver is manually selected.

I hope this way too long tale is at least helpful for other people running into the problem.

Cheers,

Andre

Friday, March 9, 2018 5:42 PM

While it seems to be possible to use one inf for multiple platforms, thats seldom used.
So I wonder why the x86 files even were put into your system folder.
Looks more like a bug in the driver package to me.

Can you name the name of the modem where you got the drivers from?
Was this driver even for Windows 10?

Monday, March 19, 2018 2:40 PM

The modem is a Sim5360E PCI-E.

As I said, I can't post the driver package as it is not available for download, but I guess there is no harm in posting the inf:

simser.inf: https://pastebin.com/eDtWF3Yy

The driver package contains a 32bit and a 64bit folder. Both contain multiple infs. The inf files are identical for 32 and 64 bit, only the sys files differ.

simser.inf and the associated simusbser.sys were the files I had trouble with.

I don't know much about the internal workings of windows drivers, but how is windows supposed to pick the correct inf if both are the same? Assuming the reference to the sys file is relative from the inf file, it can't even find the 64bit sys if it picked the inf in the 32bit folder, correct?

As for the question if the driver is for Win10: it's not in the specs, but the vendor assured me it is compatible.