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

[TED]

I don't know if it's clear that these features will no longer be supported by Microsoft, so I take your comments as mere speculations. We all know that's it's quite normal to make some fundamental code changes from one OS version to the other and hardware vendors need to keep up with it. Realtek, for example, although way more limited than Intel has seem to be keeping up. My good old motherboard with a poor realtek NIC could do VLANs (although it took a few months for Realtek to release a working Diagnostic tools).

The Intel NIC itself does support VLANs in Windows 10, you can verify this capability is enabled by going directly to the Advanced tab in the device's configuration. The only thing that's missing is the overlay software to make use of this capability. If you want to have VLANs right now in your Win10 system without any Intel software, just install Hyper-V (free of charge if you have Win 10 Pro). Hyper-V virtual switching system does support vlan tagging and it will trunk your Intel NIC directly to your network switch. So, is Microsoft really ruling out VLAN and Teaming support from Consumer products or isn't these features not part of Intel's top priorities? Even though Win10 has been released for a year now, the open betas and insider previews are set lose for at least 2 years now, enough time in my humble opinion for any developer or hw manufacturer to focus on development. In my case, I'm not even trying to migrate or upgrade anything old to something new. I literally bought a brand new motherboard for 450€ (that's a sh*t load of money for a board) with a huge advertisement for NIC Teaming. Can you imagine how disappointed I am? (yeah, I'm still whining about this).

[MKarl2]

I suspect you are right.

I feel like Microsoft is intentionally blocking any advanced network features from properly working in client operating systems.

If they keep up their strong arm tactics hurting their users, it's probably only a matter of time before someone more unhinged than I decides to firebomb them.

Pro editions of Windows used to be what you bought if you were a power-user, and needed some or all of the enterprise features at home, now it appears they are not only not offering these features, but blocking others from offering them as well, which leaves individual power users with no options in the Windows family, since they famously don't offer Enterprise/LTSB editions of Windows 10 to end users. (I'd buy it in a heart beat if I could)

As I see it there is only one option left, and that is switching over to Linux. Sure keep a Windows 10 dual boot install around, just in case, but it's not worth getting the Pro version anymore. There is nothing Pro left in it.

[MKarl2]

I would have been with you, except for the fact that the biggest change with Windows 10 was the initial update to Windows 10. In the initial Windows 10 release, both Intel's drivers and Microsofts own "New-NetLbfoTeam"worked perfectly, only to break later in the Threshold 2 upgrade.

They aren't just broken. IN the case of the Realtek drivers, they have clearly been blacklisted by Microsoft. This is an intentional push from Microsoft to kill off any advanced Networking features from working in any client version of Windows.

Someone at Microsoft clearly made a decision that no, we can't allow home users to use their computers as they please. We have to keep them as peon media consumption users only. Next steps, block all content creation software from running on non Enterprise releases. Make sure the home users essentially have nothing more than an iPad, and have to pay Microsoft a monthly fee to use every service under the sun.

I truly hope that this decision completely backfires on them, and drives users away in droves to alternate platforms. I know that personally I only keep a Windows install for the occasional game. I don't use it for anything else, and when I do, I disable EVERYTHING cloud, including Cortana (by hacking the registry). I use local user accounts only, no Microsoft accounts, and knowing how they are doing things, I will as a matter of principle never buy any of their services, or buy anything in the Microsoft Store. I don't even use IE or Edge, and I refuse to use anything related to Bing, Maps, etc.

My Windows usage scenario now looks like this:

Hmm. I feel like playing a game.

1.) Reboot.

2.) Select Windows 10 in grub bootup screen.

3.) Wait for it to load

4.) Launch game

5.) Scowl at that reminder to use the Windows game bar I never asked for, and refuse to ever open it.

6.) Play my game.

7.) When done, immediately reboot again.

8.) Select Linux in the Grub screen.

9.) Go on with life.

Games. That is all Windows is good for these days.

[TED]

I appreciate your honesty in sharing your thoughts on how you utilize Windows and I totally understand the reasons (and sympathize). I am not really that strict. I use Windows for everything and I always loved its flexibility.

I do have my stuff (encrypted though) in onedrive and I love the fact that I can access them anywhere. I pay for services like office 365 and Groove and in the same system I run around 8 VMs in a VMWare Workstation PRO infrastructure (thus the requirement for VLANs) where I run my labs, which include a bunch of Linux boxes and some windows servers too, thus the reason I need VLAN working as these VMs should be totally isolated (oh yeah, and I also game).

As I needed more throughput, I decided to upgrade to a new motherboard with teaming capability and then BOOM, teaming is not capable in Win 10 (if I only knew it before). That's so disappointing and yesterday I was reading another thread in the TechNet forum and found that teaming was actually enabled in build 10240 and now I am starting to agree with you that Microsoft is capping Win10 on purpose to be this bullshit closed system focusing all its development towards consumer and enterprise-office related stuff.

Let's see what news Carl will bring us next week, this is the deal breaker for me and Win10.

[MKarl2]

Tyler,

Since you are using VM's anyway, maybe one option would be to run your VM's on top of Linux? That way you could utilize the Linux kernel driver for link aggregation and VLAN's and not have to worry about it in Windows?

[idata]

*Pokes head up*

Carl_Wilson, if you could get us an update, that would be most appreciated.

*Head back down to dodge the bullets flying back and forth*

[CARL_W_Intel]

All,

No update just yet. I am still working with our development team to see if Teaming or VLANs will be able to be re-enabled on Windows 10. I should know by next week for sure as we close on the final testing of the drivers with Win 10.

[idata]

Hi Carl_Wilson,

Trying hard right now to not devolve down the same hole of despair many others have...

Your post today seems to have quite a different tone than previous ones you've made:

"All,

Thank you for your patience. As I promised, here is an update to this issue this week.

I've had multiple meetings with the software engineering team here to ensure we had the right amount of focus on getting to a resolution. I'm pleased to say that over the last two weeks we have made significant progress on the blocking items between our SW team and the support group in Redmond on the issue that has kept us from re-enabling this capability in Windows 10. There were some code change recommendations that, based on the current progress on testing has given us enough confidence that the blocking issues (we believe) are now resolved and have re-enabled it in our next software driver testing, scheduled for release in August (we did investigate doing a 'point release', however it would not be able to come out quicker). There of course are a series of regression tests that must be performed to have 100% confidence (since this is where the corner cases seem to be traditionally found). My SW team has promised me a 'go/no-go' the week of July 11-15.

Should the go decision be reached, it will be officially part of the scheduled August SW release.

I'll continue to keep you posted."

Source: Post 122 (June 24th)

-and-

"...The Microsoft codes is their own and is not what we base our ANS software on. Intel's Advanced Network Services (ANS) is our own code-base."

Source: Post 128 (June 27th).

It certainly seems like this has gone from "we've got this handled, it's just going to take a few weeks to test / implement" to, "Yeah, we're not sure this is going to be possible, but, hey, we're clinging onto some sort of hope we can figure out how to make this work".

Has something *drastically* changed in the intervening weeks since your posts at the end of June and now? Perhaps I'm just reading too much into this, but not having an update in over a month, and then the update saying:

"...working with our development team to see if Teaming or VLANs will be able to be re-enabled on Windows 10"

has me feeling pretty uneasy as to where this issue stands.

PS: Notice I underlined the word "if" in your sentence from today. I noted that because the tone of your updates before today seemed to be a lot less "if" and a lot more "when". Is it really now an "if" proposition? Apprecaite the straight-skinny that we've (well, at least I have) come to appreciate from you.

Please let us know what's going on.

[TED]

Hi Carl, appreciate your feedback. Please drop us the good news (or the bomb).

Cheers!!

[EFial]

I'm not liking the change to "if" in the latest update. As a major player, I feel Intel should be pushing/demanding for this feature to be enabled (if Microsoft is truly trying to keep it out of Windows 10.)

[SMont10]

Hi everybody.

I've been following this thread many months ago, waiting like you for a final solution. We are an IT Team that use a lot VLAN feature, but and I'm the only one that can continue using it because my W10 Enterprise has some windows update problems that I don't want to fix in order not to loose VLAN functionality. Also, I've been managed to do this because I'm using an old version of the ANS driver (latest always tell that this was disabled due to W10 problems) Well, I've understand that this maybe only happends on W10 Pro, not Enterprise, so my question to Carl is, if this is true, why Intel don't build ANS drivers to the Ent version? I'm thinking in install a fresh W10 Ent computer (fully updated), with the ANS version that don't check W10 lack of VLAN/Teaming, in order to check this situation.

Regards.

[idata]

I agree with smontys that using an earlier version of both Intel ANS 20.3 and Windows 10240 has worked for me. I have Windows 10 Enterprise on a Dell Precision T7610 that has a dual onboard NIC (I210 and 82759LM Gigabit adapters) I have also installed 2 Intel X520 PCI-E adapaters. The only combination that has worked for me leveraging both teaming and VLAN capabilities was to stay on Windows 10 build 10240 with Intel ANS version 20.3. Straying from either of those versions have resulted in a failure to team or to use VLANs. I have been put in a situation with other products loaded to consider losing functionality at the risk of not staying in a supported configuration because of being on an older build of Windows 10.

I have to agree that Intel is not the only network adapter vendor that has been hit by this "feature" by Microsoft beyond the initial RTM version of Windows 10. I also use Broadcom, QLogic and Mellanox adapters and each has had their fair share of issues with Microsoft's later releases of Windows 10 even with the Enterprise addition. I am not typically a litigious type of person that will shoot from the hip and cry foul on day 0 of issues discovered with upgrades in technology. But it's been almost a year since the first issues have surfaced.

I am joining the ranks of frustrated users and demanding a call to action by Intel to make this situation right. I don't expect a fix especially if this is truly a feature that has been removed from Windows 10 at the design of Microsoft's direction. What I, like many others, want and are seeking is a final deliberation on the issue. A statement from Intel in concert with Microsoft with an official statement saying that due to the policies and direction of Microsoft, we regretfully inform our thousands (maybe millions) of our users of our Intel products with Microsoft client operating systems that certain functionalities are no longer available. I don't think this would require 1000s of hours already put in by IT Professionals around the world who have been struggling with this issue and have no choice but to go down this path because Microsoft is forcing industries and consumers to upgrade.

[TED]

Excellent comprehensive analysis. I make your words mine. If the two biggest IT giants could simply tell users "look, here's the deal, this is the direction we're heading now" it would basically simplify things. If MS's is heading towards ripping off the features we know and love, fine, we can either stay at Windows 8.1 or as some of the other users suggested, move to Linux or whatever OS will make us happy. So much of having a Pro or even an Enterprise version that we pay tons of money and basically having a whole bunch of useless Apps in their app store is not much of an enterprise thing for me (yeah, I know there are tons of many other things).

In my company I find rather easy sometimes to validate features from many vendors (like Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, etc) directly from my own workstation (a Dell running Win7 Enterprise, with dual NICs with teaming and precisely 110 VLANs enabled, binding them through VMware PRO). And although we have a complete Vsphere infrastructure that I could use to do the lab stuff that I need, I just find it convenient to do it from my own desktop (it's loaded with 32gb of RAM and SSDs). We have Win10 in the pipeline, but how can we take Win10 seriously (as IT pros) when MS is doing stuff like this.

[VInga]

Any status on this? I'd love nothing more to swap back to my quad intel.

[idata]

Carl_Wilson,

Can we get an update please? Last we heard from you, the plan was to have an update "next week" (which, is now, this week).

Here's hoping for good news...

Thanks!

Joey

[VInga]

Maybe next week eh?

[G9]

I'm also waiting for more than a year for this issue to be fixed.

Our technicians in the field use this feature everyday for troubleshooting/testing.

I really hope intel can provide a solution for this issue asap...

Can you give us a status update Carl ?

Thanks !

[ALias]

Same here. What makes things worse is that I'll have to replace 18 machines next month (9 need Vlan), and it seems motherboards with dual NICs from Intel are not a good bet. If after a full year, Intel fails to address the issue (while Realtek does, indicating it's not just a Microsoft issue), I have little hope for the short term future.

I sincerely hope this problem can be tackled, but it's not looking good. The promised feedback hasn't been delivered either.

Andrew

[pmart14]

will teaming work with windows 10 Pro? or windows 10 Enterprise?

there's a 90 day trial for Enterprise.

[MKarl2]

It is not currently working in Pro, and by the sounds of it, it sounds more and more like this was a strategic decision from Microsoft. They removed their own teaming functions from Pro and appear to be attempting to block/prevent Intel/Broacom/Realtek/whomever from implementing theirs.

Judging by reports above, Enterprise LTSB (and presumably Education?) still works, but us mere mortals without access to volume licensing can never get our hands on LTSB releases This means that short of using older releases, there are no Windows alternatives for home networking "pro-sumers" like myself.

[pcol]

I tried teaming with Windows 10 Enterprise Redstone with no success. Same command not recognized error.