Installing 8.1 Drivers in Embedded 8 Standard for latest Atom chipsets

Question

We have been successfully using Windows Embedded 7 and then 8 successfully on various Dell, ASUS and MSI hardware platforms for the last several years. However, with the latest round of Tablets that have come out since Windows 8.1 was released, we can no
longer get Windows Embedded 8 Standard to install with all drivers working.
With both the Dell Venue 11 Pro and the Asus T100TA (both are based on the Intel Atom Z3770 processor and corresponding chipset) the vendors only supply Windows 8.1 drivers and we can only find reference to Windows 8.1 on Intel's site for that chipset
(which was released at the same time as Windows 8.1).
We can get all of the drivers to display as installed in the Device Manager, but when we do so, the system will no longer shut down. It will go through the normal shutdown process, but after the screen shuts off the device is still powered on (we can tell
the "home" button is still powered and if you have USB accessories attached with power LEDs, they are still getting power). Pressing the power button will not turn the system on. If you wait long enough, the system will restart on its own. If you
are impatient and want to turn the system on, you have to press and hold the power button for 10 seconds to do a hard shutdown. Then you wait a few seconds and THEN you can power the system back on.
I can say that if I do not install the Intel Atom Processor I2C Controller driver for SPB framework (which is the driver used by 7 devices), the system will successfully power off. However, then the touch screen stops working and who knows what else. The
only issue reported in Device Manager is that the "Intel Atom Processor UART Controller" is installed but has a device status of "The driver for this device might be corrupted, or your system may be running low on memory or other resources.
(Code 3)."
My question is, given that Microsoft changed the driver model between Windows 8 and 8.1 but are NOT releasing a Windows 8.1 Embedded Standard, and vendors (supposedly at Microsoft's request (as per vendor comments)) and not providing Windows 8.0 drivers,
how are we supposed to use Windows 8 Embedded Standard on the most recent hardware platforms? Is there any way to add updates to 8.0 Embedded to support 8.1 drivers? Is there somewhere that might have 8.0 drivers that I have not thought of to look?

Answer 1

With all the changes at Microsoft, they have been silent on future market direction. WEPOS/POSReady 2009 and POSReady 7 were limited to point of sale systems so that WES can be used in the general embedded systems. When Microsoft started promoting Windows
Embedded Industry to the boarder market segments rather than limit it for Point of Sale/Service market and Windows 8.1 was only released for embedded under Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry, it appears the componentized version, WES, will not be carried forward.
Windows Embedded Industry more aligns with the Windows desktop group, and the same Windows desktop tools like SIM can be used to create custom installers. With storage costs going down, MS appears to be thinking that a componentized version is not worth
the cost benefit.
The advantage of WEI is that a missing device driver or OS features will not be a problem. Any unwanted services like IIS can be disabled. The build process with SIM is similar (not exact) to WES7 so it is not difficult to take some work done in WES7
and bring it over to SIM.
Also, you can see from the Windows embedded team site that they are pushing Intelligent Systems or Cloud Computing. How this fits with managing and developing embedded operating systems is a puzzle since there is already another group that promotes
Windows Azure.
Finally, ask the Windows CE (Windows Embedded Compact) developers what they think of the progress of WEC. You might get some interesting answers.
Again, these are just my observations so take it for what it is worth. Microsoft can change direction tomorrow as they re-organize and wait for a new CEO.
www.annabooks.com / www.seanliming.com / Book Author - Pro Guide to WE8S, Pro Guide to WES 7, Pro Guide to POS for .NET