I recently scavenged a new USB-to-LAN adapter manufactured by Apple Inc. The model of the adapter is A1277. After I plugged it into my Windows PC, the device was recognized correctly in the device mgr but Windows is not able to automatically install the driver for it.
The A1277 has the hardware ID VID_05AC/PID_1402 which indicates it is one of the Apple devices however Apple didn’t provide a Windows driver for it. The A1277 uses the AX88772A IC manufactured by ASIX. This IC provides the cross-platform driver. Its driver should work fine as well.
All driver has a digital signature which ensures the integrity of the driver file. Once any driver file is modified the digital signature will break and the Windows will refuse to install it.
To disable digital signature verification you can choose one of the method below.
Open settings and choose Update & Security
Click Restart now
under Recovery > Advanced startup
Go to Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup settings
and then after reboot choose Disable digital signature enforcement
Run cmd
or Power shell
with administrator privilege.
Type bcdedit -set TESTSIGNING ON
and press enter.
Reboot and you should see test mode info on the right down corner of your desktop.
Note this change will not automatically restore, so remember to disable the test mode with bcdedit -set TESTSIGNING OFF
after driver installation for security.
The driver can be found at ASIX website. The link for AX88772A is here
Extract the zip and open NETAX88772.inf
with the text editor. Comment out the original vendor id and device id and replace them with the Apple one as the following picture shows.
In the device manager, right click the Apple adapter with examination sign and select Update Driver
.
Choose Browse my computer for driver software
Fill in the directory where you store your modified driver.
Ignore the warning and choose Install this driver software anyway
.
You will see an install complete notification.
Check the device in Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change Adapter settings