Microsoft says that Windows 10 and Windows Server users will be blocked from installing incorrectly formatted third-party drivers after deploying this month's cumulative updates.
"When installing a third-party driver, you might receive the error, 'Windows can’t verify the publisher of this driver software'," Microsoft says.
"You might also see the error, 'No signature was present in the subject' when attempting to view the signature properties using Windows Explorer."
Triggered by broken driver catalog files
This issue is caused by improperly formatted driver catalog files that trigger the errors during the driver validation process as Microsoft explains.
Starting with the October 2020 updates, Windows requires DER-encoded PKCS#7 content to be valid and correctly embedded in catalog files.
"Catalogs files must be signed per section 11.6 of describing DER-encoding for SET OF members in X.690," Microsoft
adds.
Users who encounter these errors while attempting to install a third-party driver are advised to ask their driver vendor or device manufacturer (OEM) for an updated and correctly signed driver.
Affected Windows platforms include client (from Windows 8.1 up to Windows 004) and server versions (from Windows Server 2012 R2 up to Windows Server, version 2004).
