I211/I217-V Windows 10 LACP teaming fails

[FKurt]

Hello,

after the update to Windows 10 (x64, Build 10240) the creation of a teaming group (static or IEEE802.3ad) with a I211+I217-V NIC fails.

Drivers have been upgraded to the latest version available and multiple reinstallations with reboots din't help either. Whenever the group creation wizzard is used and a groupname (several tried), the adapters and LACP have been selected, a Windows pop-up appears to tell me group creation has failed.

However the Windows Device Manager shows a newly created "Intel Advanced Network Services Virtual Adapter", so some kind of configuration seems to get done.

Using Windows 7 SP1 x64 the exact same setup worked flawlessly for months, so Win10/the driver are the likely culprit.

Is anyone experiencing similar problems and/or is this a known bug? Feedback on this issue is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Kind regards,

Famaku

[CUllr]

Beware of Realtek; their latest driver/diagnostic tool does not support teaming anymore either. The setup still installs the teaming driver (it shows up in the network adapter properties), but the "Teaming" option visible in Vinniel's post a few pages back is simply gone (on Windows 10 1607 at least, no idea about earlier versions, but that screenshot was on 1607).

Oh, and the file on that Realtek FTP server is also not there anymore; they replaced it with a version from three weeks ago. It's newer than the one in the driver package, and it lost that option, too.

[CLeck]

Given that this has been going on for more than a year, and from the lack of updates almost certainly won't be fixed in the next driver release (whenever that might be), I see only two possibilities:

1. Intel, despite all the resources at their disposal and their contacts within Microsoft, can't fix it. This seems exceptionally unlikely when Realtek can make their NICs work.
2. Intel, whether on their own or at the behest of Microsoft, won't fix it.

In my experience, bugs that take this long to get nowhere seldom get fixed at all. What I expect to happen at this point is that Intel release a "brand new" NIC to "fix" the problem, and nothing prior to that will get LACP or VLAN support in Windows 10. Microsoft will get away with it by blaming Intel's hardware, and Intel will get away with it by blaming Microsoft's software and saying the NIC was launched such a long time ago, we can't possibly support that. Oh, hang on - that's already happened. Look for the i360 in Q1'17.

I'm done waiting. I'm about 60% through planning my migration from Windows 10 with VMware to FreeBSD with VirtualBox. Windows 10 will live on virtualised for the few things I can't or don't want to replace with an open source equivalent (e.g. Lightroom), and I'll dual-boot for games. That will conclude my use of Windows as my primary desktop OS after more than 20 years - who would have guessed it wouldn't be the terrible UI that drove me to another OS?

[jbond5]

please release beta drivers!

I don't care restoring a complete system backup in case of complete crash, I want to test this driver.

I need teaming.

[DMcCo3]

FWIW, I'd also love to see a beta release driver knowing full well I may need to re-install the OS should something go haywire. I probably should anyway.

I did try the RealTek update that was mentioned by Vinniel and did get teaming to work but did have issues tearing down the team to return to two individual ports. I resorted to registry key deletion to resolve and disabled the ports in the BIOS (dual port RealTek NICs on this ancient 980X based mobo). I returned to the Intel dual port NIC hoping for a return of teaming.

[AA28]

VinnieI I signed up here just to thank you for posting that Realtek driver. I gave up on the intel option and bought the Realtek based on your post, but could not find the driver, nor have I had a response from RealTek. I installed the driver you posted, and I finally see my LACP link up on my switch. Thanks

[VInga]

Awesome, no problems right?

Others whacked me a little saying it's old and couldn't possibly work. It's not new, no. It's what realtek sent me and it's what works. I hope to be back on my intel nic but not till teaming and vlan work. Hopefully sometime soon.

[VInga]

Had an issue with my router during this but if you need another video showing the traffic flow, I can re-do the video for non-believers. The machine was slow during the screen capture

[DCol]

Carl,

I for one would love to test the Beta version of this driver on one of my test systems. no fear of losing the OS on that. Even willing to do a NDA if needed so the drivers are guaranteed not to be released to the public. Done many NDA's in the past. Think I may have even done one with Intel about 15 years ago.

You have quite a few willing testers here. Lets see how it goes.

Dan

[idata]

I have to agree with Dan... I'd like to see a beta or non-supported version, even if NDA is required. I think most of the people involved in this thread are well versed in what the 10% of the time outcome means, and that we are probably all IT professionals who have a very distinct need for both Windows 10 and ANS and we are willing to live with the risk of having to re-image our machines if it all goes wrong.

dcc

[VInga]

Realtek finally made my win10 blow up. Will post details after rebuild. Avoid teaming with any hardware till certification is met.

[MMath7]

It's been quite a while since I've been writing here...

I have to thank Carl for the honnesty of his reports.

Still I can't believe that things do not escalate internally (above Carl) at Intel side to shake Microsoft team.

Something that WAS working is not working anymore... Do they have some version configuration tool to revert / compare the old working code and the new one ?

I have a small machine here (Shuttle DS67U7) loaded with 2 1G NIC : 1 intel i211 and one intel i219LM. It's running windows 10 enterprise version and I would be glad to test those new drivers. I can easyly image the full system prior to that.

In case a reboot is not needed, I can even run the W10 enterprise unified write filter to test the driver installation at no risk for the OS.

Regards, and I really hope that the end is close... At some point in time (message from Carl 24 juin 2016 12:59) it should add been resolved in August...

it will slip a little more obviously.

Regards

[JB_3]

I'll keep an eye on this post as I can't use my dual i210 on my motherboard on Windows 10 LACP aswell. Even "worse" - I can't even install the (21.0) ProSet / drivers on my machine even though the installation finished successfully, shortly thereafter Windows 10 shows a pop-up that the drivers were blocked because they are not digitially signed (this is a fresh Win10 Anniversary Update / v1607 installation).

So yeah.. support for a) Windows 10 1607 / Anniversary Update and b) LACP support would be quite.. nice.

[JHarv4]

Coming from an IT team myself this is really causing us issues. Does anyone at all have a working USB network device that is 100% working with VLANs in Win 10? Or is this affecting literally everyone.

If you have something working please let us know the exact model, I'll be happy to go buy one until this finally gets resolved sometime in 2018

[idata]

I was able to manually set a VLAN manually (within the driver / properties area) for this USB 3.0 to Gigabit NIC device:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EHDNAOE https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EHDNAOE

Granted, that was in Windows 7, but since it didn't require any third-party software beyond just the driver (which installed automatically), perhaps it would work under Windows 10 as well?

Give it a whirl!

[MAnde19]

feedback-hub:?contextid=606&feedbackid=54a72b37-b345-4b15-a3bf-e2eb22deb68e&form=1&src=2

I don't know if it would help, but it might not be a bad idea to upvote this.

[DCol]

You got my upvote

[DMcCo3]

Latest update to another thread is disappointing to say the least. See https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/66166918-5b67-4754-89e5-a2572b1888a2/nic-teaming-failed-build-10568-windows-10?forum=win10itpronetworking NIC Teaming failed (Build 10568) Windows 10

"There are no native LBFO capabilities on Win10. Microsoft does not support client SKU network teaming.

It was a defect in Windows 10 build 10240 that "New-NetLbfoTeam" wasn't completely blocked on client SKUs. This was an unintentional bug, not a change in the SKU matrix. All our documentation continued to say that NIC Teaming is exclusively a feature for Server SKUs.

While the powershell cmdlet didn't outright fail on client, LBFO was in a broken and unsupported state, since the client SKU does not ship the mslbfoprovider.sys kernel driver. That kernel driver contains all the load balancing and failover logic, as well as the LACP state machine. Without that driver, you might get the appearance of a team, but it wouldn't really do actual teaming logic. We never tested NIC Teaming in a configuration where this kernel driver was missing.

In the 10586 update ("Fall update") that was released a few months later, "New-NetLbfoTeam" was correctly blocked again.

In the 14393 update ("Anniversary update"), we continued blocking it, but improved the error message.

The bottom line is that customers should NOT attempt to create teams on client SKU. It is NOT supported on client SKU, and never has been. Classic NIC Teaming continues to be supported in Windows Server 2016.

Adam Rudell | Windows Networking Beta | Microsoft Corporation"

I'm now considering UPGRADING back to Windows 8.1 just to get teaming back. I feel for Intel, RealTek, etc. Microsoft really blew it and left ya'll facing the wraith for their bad decisions.

[JHarv4]

Same here, though rolling back a few machines to Win 7 as I type this.

[idata]

I had a feeling that this was the case where Microsoft would crush all hopes and dreams for teaming. This really falls into a scandalous arena in my opinion. Can anyone pull up Windows 10 features list from the original RTM launch? Was teaming ever a listed feature on previous Windows client versions? I think all of us were duped into thinking this was an upgrade as usual like Windows XP to Windows 7 and Windows 7 to Windows 8/8.1 where we didn't even think to look at what features where removed from Microsoft. If this is truly the case (I tend not to be a litigious person) then I most certainly would expect a future class action against Microsoft on this one. How is it that not only the end-user but even Microsoft certified HCL vendors too had the wool pulled over their eyes by Microsoft. Something is definitely not right with this one.

[MVass]

I still do not understand - how can Microsoft claim teaming was never available on a client SKU while most of you here have used it on Windows 7 / 8 and 8.1 I did not and I am not going to move back to any of these OS platforms, but I believe if you state so - it is true. So Microsoft blatantly removed the feature and started claiming it will not be available.

I personally moved to Server 2016.

[idata]

Keep in mind the very key point that "native" / MSFT LBFO (i.e., via the PowerShell command) has never worked on client SKUs. What *did* work in the past was third party utilities, like Intel's ANS, to accomplish this feature set.

So, it's not entirely fair to say that Microsoft "supported LBFO" in previous client OSes; as they didn't, directly. Third party providers had created solutions for that need, like Intel's ANS, and those third-party solutions simply don't work with Windows 10 at this time, for whatever reason (changes in miniport driver, etc, as Carl Wilson has discussed previously).

Microsoft has been providing "developer" support to Intel to try and assist them in solving their third-party application issues on Windows 10, just as they would with any other developer reporting a problem with their app and Windows 10. But, it sounds to me like in terms of priority, this is seen as no better or no worse than any other developer support case from the eyes of Microsoft, so the turn around time is much longer than any of us would want.

All that being said, given the amount of time it's taken thus far (months) coupled with Microsoft's response as posted above (which, by the way, was the same response I received from my Microsoft TAM but was reluctant to share publicly - the cats out of the bag now though), it's pretty clear to me that Microsoft not only has no interest in supporting LBFO natively, since the sheer tone of that MSFT response comes across in what I can only describe as "vitriolic" in nature.

It's not even they don't want to support it natively; it's not hard to get the drift that they seem to think it's patently stupid that a person using a client OS would ever want to use LBFO. Period.

Therefore, my fear is this apparent perception on the part of MSFT may be creating a situation where the developer support may be getting put on the back burner. My hope is that's not the case, but given how long it's been taking to get this resolved paired with the snippy attitude in that MSFT response... It's mighty hard not to wonder if there is some shenanigans going on making this take longer than it otherwise should