This driver dates back to 2006, and is part of Microsoft's oldest internal basic drivers.

Universal Microsoft drivers have those, supposedly old dates because of the algorithm that governs driver matching and installation. They are providing basic functionality while vendor drivers unlock the full potential. It's not an indicator of driver age per se, but a way to always prefer vendor drivers with newer (real) dates.

From Raymond Chen's blog on the issue:

When the system looks for a driver to use for a particular piece of hardware, it ranks them according to various criteria. If a driver provides a perfect match to the hardware ID, then it becomes a top candidate. And if more than one driver provides a perfect match, then the one with the most recent timestamp is chosen. If there is still a tie, then the one with the highest file version number is chosen.

The default NVMe driver's inefficiency is nothing new. Samsung used to provide their own NVMe driver for improved performance, but stopped doing that since 980 series.

Just did this. Now all three NVMes I got are using nvmedisk.inf :toast: All seems well

Crazy we've been limited by those SCSi commands for so long on these lol wonder what other 'wonders' windows is holding

ncrsThe default NVMe driver's inefficiency is nothing new. Samsung used to provide their own NVMe driver for improved performance, but stopped doing that since 980 series.

I think Intel and later on Solidgm also provided their own custom NVME driver with their drives. Each passing day turd that is Win11 seems to get stinkier and stinkier.

@Chaitanya, this isn't exclusive to Win11. The same issue is present in Win10, and 8.1.
For a while, yes, you did have manufacturers having drivers of their own to "do better" on their products than Microsoft's standard driver, but it really did not catch on.
If I'm not mistaken, AMD had a storage driver of their own for the motherboards starting with AM4.

Working on Win 11 Iot enterprise LTSC 24H2
Old driver v new gen 5. up and down old on left. System in Specs

Is there a list of drives I can check?

To all the ones reporting "Working!", unless it's the system listed in system specs, please help the community out by listing which SSDs you had activated the driver (and which motherboard). Thank you! :)

Still not interested in 25H2.

Also we have been able to upgrade the nvme drivers for years at this point, so this is NOT news worthy.

@b1k3rdude it is for the Average Joe if this starts being enabled by default.

EDIT: I wonder if this finally also makes the energy profile rules apply, because Windows has a set of NVMe-specific rules that I've never been able to get to work right.

_JP_To all the ones reporting "Working!", unless it's the system listed in system specs, please help the community out by listing which SSDs you had activated the driver (and which motherboard). Thank you! :)

and where would this "community" be?

Seems to work on this here T705 drive with an ASUS X870i motherboard. Crucial Storage manager doesn't open, however, and it is definitely slower to shutdown (something to do with fast boot?!). I haven't done any benchmarks, so we'll have to see how stable it is going forward...I know Crucial has their own Nvme driver listed on their storage page but I couldn't get it to install.

Enclosed;

Another user warns that the registry hacks cause changes to the partitions. Among other things, this changes the disk ID, which explains why some tools have problems afterwards. It could be that backup software, for example, also has difficulties with the changed partitions.

ComputerBase (de) & Deskmodder (de)

By the way, successfully activated on Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 24H2 (26100.7462) on a “Lexar NM710 2TB.”


@btarunr
The teaser implies that it only works with 25H2, which is not correct.

With a friendly smile,
Fred.

Jtuck9(something to do with fast boot?!).

Please disable this junk. Especially if you didn't install Windows on a platter. Because this stupid feature dates back to that time. The reason Redmond continues to carry it along and activate it automatically is due to its complete incompetence.

kondaminand where would this "community" be?

Ah, easy. It's at www.techpowerup.com/forums/ ! :)

@Jtuck9 "Fast Boot" and "Fast Startup" are two different things. I think you are speaking about "Fast Startup", which is a Windows setting and you can disable it (along with hibernation) running an elevated CMD and the command [ICODE]powercfg -h off[/ICODE]
"Fast Boot" is a setting in UEFI and it just skips some steps to get to the bootloader faster, like hardware detection, RAM checks, etc. These days, might as well be off anyway, UEFI checks the whole system fast enough.

I check my Samsung SSDs disks:

980 Pro - disk.sys
990 Pro - disk.sys
Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (build 26100.7462)

So, yeah... old one.

_JP_@Chaitanya, this isn't exclusive to Win11. The same issue is present in Win10, and 8.1.
For a while, yes, you did have manufacturers having drivers of their own to "do better" on their products than Microsoft's standard driver, but it really did not catch on.
If I'm not mistaken, AMD had a storage driver of their own for the motherboards starting with AM4.

Even older AMD chipsets came with their own storage drivers(sata). I think there might be only raid drivers now not standard nvme drivers for individual drives

FR3D1Please disable this junk. Especially if you didn't install Windows on a platter. Because this stupid feature dates back to that time. The reason Redmond continues to carry it along and activate it automatically is due to its complete incompetence.

I've been pretty lax with this new build. I thought Microsoft had resolved the issues with drivers and updates not installing properly with it enabled?! I remember it befuddling me with on an old laptop storage drive that had a tiny Optane chip tacked on...

_JP_Ah, easy. It's at www.techpowerup.com/forums/ ! :)

@Jtuck9 "Fast Boot" and "Fast Startup" are two different things. I think you are speaking about "Fast Startup", which is a Windows setting and you can disable it (along with hibernation) running an elevated CMD and the command [ICODE]powercfg -h off[/ICODE]
"Fast Boot" is a setting in UEFI and it just skips some steps to get to the bootloader faster, like hardware detection, RAM checks, etc. These days, might as well be off anyway, UEFI checks the whole system fast enough.

I'm still not brave enough to disable Memory Context Restore in bios (I meant enable), so probably a moot point, although in the spirit of this new storage driver "In for a penny"...

Crucial E100 on a PRIME B560 board, W11 25H2

Works with the new driver

_JP_To all the ones reporting "Working!", unless it's the system listed in system specs, please help the community out by listing which SSDs you had activated the driver (and which motherboard). Thank you! :)

Operation successful. NVME: Crucial T710 (gen. V) and Samsung 970 PRO (gen. IV). Motherboard: Asrock X870E Nova. System: Windows Enterprise 11 LTSC.

Hello.
Thanks For this usefull informations.
I Got it Working with Samsung SSD EVO 970 and WD Black SN770
Only thing Strange is ?
Windows 11 cannot find standard Folders like %temp% yet? on these SSD?
Probably have to Change Settings somewhere?

Don't try this SSD Speedup if your not comfortable with Deeper Windows Settings!!

I wonder if it worth it making a restore point and testing it on Win 10

Working on WD Black SN7100 1 TB

Is there anyway to know what drives can handling this instead of just trying this out? I guess there is always safe boot if it goes wrong.

You should always make a restore point (or better: real backup).
It works for all NVMe drives.

990 Pro verdict: Some minor losses in 8t sequential write and a major gain in 1t sequential write tho considering that this was abnormally low on disk.sys compared to my other drives im willing to chalk this up to a fluke on the single test run.
980 Pro OEM verdict: Sequentials are pretty much the same. Randoms have gained beyond run to run variance tho.
S70 Blade verdict: Sequentials are pretty much the same. Randoms have gained beyond run to run variance.

AIDA64 doesn't see these NVME drives under SMART data, but that could also because im using an older version of the program.
It's possible the new version sees them. Not sure about other utilities reading SMART data.

Overall other numbers improved and widows does seem snappier in terms of startup. No issue finding %temp% etc.
TRIM also sees them and TRIM works.

I dont understand why on earth is this not the default.
Another strange decision by MS leaving performance on the table.
I cant even imagine how many other settings are there similar to this where potential gains could be had if MS was not so focused on fiddling around with meaningless AI junk. Now i wonder if 25H2 update removes those registry values so i have to add them again.

Also those values in the notebook article are broken. Dont copy them 1:1. The key name should be Overrides, but in that article it reads Over and then goes into values. This is the correct .reg way of adding these values without using commandline.
Make a restore point just in case before executing.

Save as .reg and doubleclick to execute and make sure to restart afterwards:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\FeatureManagement\Overrides]
"156965516"=dword:00000001
"1853569164"=dword:00000001
"735209102"=dword:00000001

So I made a restore point and entered the commands and rebooted but doesn't look like the driver change worked on Windows 10.





I think the driver is missing in windows 10 I was able to find it from another source



Just not sure I should continue messing around to try and get it working.