Will all drivers for windows 8.1 work on windows 10?

Question

Will all drivers for windows 8.1 work on windows 10? Like for hybrid laptop/tablet detachable keyboard drivers ... etc

Solution

As with every new component in a system, something new might introduce incompatibillities. Microsoft is trying hard to fix bugs in other peoples software; windows 10 not named Windows 9 because some software might test version-string starting with 'windows 9' to determine if it actually runs on Windows 9x is just the tip of the iceberg and most dedicated developers think this is one of the root of all evils.

That being said, you can make the educated guess that of course it will NOT happen that "all drivers for windows 8.1 [will] work on windows 10". Most might. So if a driver…

• does not rely on any special Windows 10 features
• follows KernelModeDriverFramework
• catches any exeption in a stable way
• does not leak

…it might function. Those are many IFs.

So the correct answer to your question is:

Will all drivers for windows 8.1 work on windows 10?

With almost complete certainty, NO, not all.

Comments

[fixer1234]

You could peruse the forums looking for reports of problems. If you see any, that would answer the question with "no". If you don't see any problem reports, there probably is not a definitive answer. If you are interested in specific drivers, that should be answerable.

[whs]

That should work for the keyboard. Drivers seems to be the least problem with Windows 10.

[magicandre1981]

Windows 10 is internally version 10.0 and Windows 8.1 = 6.3. So some drivers may struggle with the changed version.

[Fiasco Labs]

In most cases, you don't know till you try it. Unless the driver specifically says it will run on the newest OS, and even then, sometimes the initial version for the new OS will be buggy as the software developer hasn't had as broad a collection of variant installations and hardware to test on as exists in real life.

[Quandary]

@rhavin: Most might ? No, that's "Most will not"! Most drivers, that is - drivers that are more than "drivers" (.inf files) - will not work, because they are operating system specific (aka they are actual drivers). And Windows 10 is brand new, so no manufacturer has yet had the time to upgrade their drivers, let alone test them...