Problems with HP specific version of Windows 11?

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After running Win11 on my desk top for a while I was very satisfied with it and purchased a new HP Spectra laptop with Win11 installed.  A week ago my desktop updated to 21H2 and the laptop scheduled its self for the (I believe) same update.  Disaster.  The laptop became a brick, unable to boot or do anything (including reinstalling the OS).  Spent days on phone with Microsoft and HP trying to fix.  Finally had to send the laptop back (where some dolt wiped it and installed windows 10 but that is another story) to be fixed.  It was only then that they admitted that the version of Win11 they were installing was a modified (by contract with Microsoft apparently) version and that apparently Microsoft released this version which trashed certain HP drivers resulting in this condition (i.e. turning the laptop into an expensive paperweight).

HP finally told me that they are “working with Microsoft” to “fix” this.  Anyone else out there familiar with this situation and able to shed more light on it?

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charles martel

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A crappy Windows 11 driver is killing HP laptops – and owners are angry (msn.com)  What model?

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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Things like that do happen. I find that manufacturers (of anything) and publishers (of software) have high and low periods for their reliability. My current, fairly powerful desktop won’t run Windows 11, and I’m glad of it. Microsoft has never really cared for its customers, and they aren’t expected to change that longstanding policy any time soon.

Among other Windows-specific software, I run O&O Shutup 10++, a very good anti-spying software, to prevent Windows from “phoning home” so often.

For maybe ten Windows 7 years (2009 to 2019?) I ran two different HP desktop boxes without Windows problems. They were fairly reliable and had HP-specific Windows code on them. On the first one, bought new, eventually its spinning hard drive gave up the ghost, and because I’d purchased extended support, they dispatched a knowledgeable tech to our place. He replaced the drive while I watched and we talked a little. On the second HP box, eventually its front-panel, four-slot, camera card reader needed replacement, which I did myself.

My current “daily driver desktop” is not an HP box. Early in its Fall 2019 deployment and spin-up Windows 10 was having goofy problems that only a senior Microsoft tech could solve. I started using Windows with 95, and built a peer-to-peer LAN on it. I’ve run and/or managed machines with 98, NT, Vista, 2000 Server and its LAN, 7, and 8 (and some intermittent, networked Mac boxes).

Also, you will find me more inclined to reply to your posts if you ante up the very few (contribute what you like) bucks to get yourself a user handle in these parts. I passed it by four times before now. You don’t have to be an expert here (I’m not compared to many) but I’m less inclined to take my own time to reply to anonymous posts.

Finance, social and tech founder. Managing director of new crowd sourced games in pre-release development. Director on a new consortium to bring fractional ownership of heritage antiquities to the blockchain. My planet-wide talk show for people craving new stories by which to live is Casual Saints.

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The HP Hotkey Support driver was always something I was curious to learn about; specifically why it’s needed and what it does. If you boot a HP laptop into a flavour of Linux, the hotkeys work perfectly and report different scan codes to Windows. On my laptop at least, installing the hotkey driver in Windows installs a filter driver on the keyboard (HpqKbFiltr.sys), which makes a change in the embedded controller. The hotkeys then stop working in Linux. Pressing the brightness keys just triggers the microphone mute switch from then on. The only way around that is to do an EC reset (hold the power button for about 10 seconds).

I wonder if Windows doesn’t support the full set of scan codes and they need an additional filter driver or something?

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Having run at least two HP boxes, the idea of HP’s Hotkey Driver makes me uncomfortable about ever owning one of their boxes again. Or any of the manufacturing bigs. Because I remember the time when Sony got caught red-handed digging into everyone’s private cookie jars, by root-kitting private system drives with external, optical media. By my offering you the source I do here, Wikipedia, does not mean I’d ever trust that source implicitly. But for quick and dirty to remind people about it, it works OK.

When all that happened, my daily driver was a Dell work station, and I was running a Dell server for our LAN. And although I’d purchased a bundle of five support cases from Dell to help me with the server, when I called them the first time to ask their advice, I found out I knew more than their techs about my call. I got a refund on the support bundle.

PS… wouldn’t ya think that the big computer manufacturers’ execs had heard back-channel chatter about what Sony was going to do before Sony did it? I do.

Finance, social and tech founder. Managing director of new crowd sourced games in pre-release development. Director on a new consortium to bring fractional ownership of heritage antiquities to the blockchain. My planet-wide talk show for people craving new stories by which to live is Casual Saints.

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Cybertooth

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