I’ve been able to at least get back into Partner Center with the help of Microsoft support (I know, shocking!). The trick was to open the issue via Microsoft 365 support as a global admin issue.
If your issue is that you have no global admin (our situation for the onmicrosoft tenant) you will get a call back.
Still don’t have Hardware workspace but I’m hopeful that the problem might be an incomplete company profile. Here’s hoping that completing this triggers a review and finally restores signing ability.
I have created a post on Hacker News about this problem. I will not link to it directly to avoid running afoul of the OSR or HN forums rules, but if you wish to find it search for the topic below and consider upvoting and/or posting your experience.
Tell HN: Microsoft has locked out a bunch of 3rd party Windows driver developers
Microsoft just closed my support request without response after asking me to provide "evidence" that the account was valid, which I did. This is the second time this happens.
This is ridiculous. What is the point of even asking if you are not going to look at it?
What a PITA…
I was also locked out few weeks ago. But then I run the verifaction with AU10TIX and suddenly it was working again…
But now, view weeks later I can only login but I cannot access my hardware or sumit any drivers for signing.
If I go the the “Legal Info” page every thing seems to be OK.
No Rejected status etc. Also the Verifcation of if sais everythin is fine.
Now if I go to “Program”page and try to add “Hardware” to my account, it sais:
“Our records indicate that you have already enrolled into this program but your program registration is deactivated”
But no exact reason what is wrong etc..
Also all the tips, tricks and hacks from above do not work on my side. I have no idea to get in contact with someone from Microsoft….
What is wrong with them?
Are still people able to signe there drivers !?
I think anyone who was aware of and completed validation before the deadline (Oct ‘25?) would have kept their access.
I finally got to talk to support by presenting it as a login issue and the support person did tell me they’d forward the issue to partner support. That issue was closed and I’ve not heard back.
I did a copilot session and it concluded, after I got 404 for every URL it had me try, that “There is currently no public-facing support from outside Partner Center for Hardware Program access issues” and “Microsoft has fully retired the old Hardware Dev Center support URLs AND the new Learn-based support URLs”
The only suggestion co-pilot made is to open an issue somewhere else (i.e. account verification) with the descriptive text: “This request is not about verification. … Please forward this ticket to the Windows Hardware Program support team”.
But I think that’s what we’ve been doing and either the issues aren’t actually getting forwarded or no one is picking them up.
There are a few threads before Oct 2025 where people faced the same issue.
Here is the exact text that Copilot recommends to try to raise an issue through the validation topic (though that’s not it, it’s one of the only topics that gets human triage):
This issue is being incorrectly routed to the automated self-help workflow.
The system assumes this is a standard troubleshooting topic, which triggers the
‘no further support is available’ message.
This is not a self-help issue. It requires manual review and must be routed to
the Partner Center Hardware Program Operations team, as only they can restore
Hardware Workspace access.
Please override the automated routing and escalate this ticket to a human reviewer.
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Managed to get a service request in at least. Likely to be closed or rejected IMO. However we will take it from that point as it took a ridiculous amount of effort to get that far.
I cannot believe this process is so bad.