Locked out of Microsoft Partner Center driver submission page

NTDEV
82

That happened to me at first too, but that started working correctly once I got the verification issue sorted out. After that, I could subunit a ticket about the disabled access to hardware program. So I think we need to handle these issues separately.

The verification issue got sorted out once I got into Legal info section and edited the e-mail field where there is a small text saying it needs a personal email address. After that, it requested id check through Au10tix and then this part was all good. Still no access to hardware program, but could at least submit a ticket about it.

83

Intersting.

I did more less the same. My Email was a personal one all the time, but I edit something in the Legal Info section, went through the Au10ix process and after that I was able to sign my drivers again.

After some time (2-3) weeks later, I was locked out again and now I cannot submit tickets and I cannot sign drivers any more.

The whole workspace for Hardware is just gone.

If there are hacks and tricks suggestions how to submit a ticket, please let me know.

84

That is exactly how it happened for me as well. But then yesterday I just tried again to change e-mail address in legal info section. Apparently, that got the verification process going again. After a while I got past identity verification and got to employment verification where I could supply the same Au10tix id as last time. After an hour or so it was all set.

But it did not restore access to Hardware program. It is just gone here too. But now as the verification process is done, I realized I could at least submit a support ticket now because now it is possible to select values in the mandatory fields.

Interestingly, like others also seem to have seen in this thread, when trying to enroll in the Hardware program again I just get “Our records indicate that you have already enrolled into this program but your program registration is deactivated.” in red text. No explanation, nothing.

85

There is now an official post about this issue and some kind of temporary solution in place by placing a support ticket:

1 Like
86

Great news!

Thanks for sharing this :folded_hands:

1 Like
87

@Olof_Lagerkvist beat me to it, but I can confirm that the updated blog post contains “the recipe” for resolving any current issues with the dashboard:

Action Required: Account Verification for Windows Hardware Program Begins October 16, 2025 | Microsoft Community Hub

And if you find yourself stuck and making no progress then filling out the following form should reach the right people to expedite the review of your support ticket:

Windows Hardware Program (HDC) Account Reinstatement Help Request Form

We (OSR) are obviously not involved in this process, but if you report any issues here we’ll continue to try and keep the visibility up so people can get back to doing business…

1 Like
88

Just to add to this:

We would very much like to hear from folks who've suffered from this problem and have used the new help procedure described above on 14 April.

Good, bad, or "nothing yet" will be helpful. Working together as a community, with the help of a group of helpful folks at Microsoft, we can overcome these obstacles.

89

For us it took until Friday 17th to get access back to Hardware Program and driver signing. We created support tickets through different ways including the Help Request Form linked earlier. We went through a couple of closed tickets for various reasons, for example “incomplete information”, standard reply saying that we had to complete id verification and validation steps in Partner Center portal first (which we clearly already had, everything there looked good) etc. Then, tweeted Garrett Duchesne directly on X and got his attention and then access back to driver signing again a few hours after that.

1 Like
90

It helped us and we are back on and the issue is solved.

1 Like
91

Hello, Peter:

I used the special Reinstatement Form which made someone within Microsoft notice, because they resolved the verification issue. So I am now verified again.

Unfortunately they asked me to open a separate request for getting access back to the Hardware Portal, which I did. That request is still pending and I am still unable to sign drivers.

92

Now they responded to my new support request saying that my account is not verified, even though they just verified it last week. (I sent them a screenshot to prove it.)

The saga continues...

93

We got a notification 4/16 that vetting department requires no action (we’ve been back to authorized for weeks) and they created a new issue to address the suspension.

Still waiting…

94

As far as I can see, you generally have to distinguish whether you are the "organizational admin" or just a user who has been granted access by the org admin to submit drivers.

Using the information on this list from some time ago, and after some discussion with Microsoft's AI, I was able to submit a support request and received a confirmation email.
However, I didn't see a reply for 2 or 3 weeks, and I hadn't recorded an URL where I could check the ticket status online. Unfortunately, it looked like the confirmation email didn't contain such URL.

In the meantime, I saw an information in my account settingss that my own account would have to be verified, but when I had a closer look together with our admin, we saw that he was the one who needed to verify his account.

After our admin had done so, the request in my account setting disappeared, but I was still locked out of the dashboard.

With the latest information from the OSR forum, I was able to create another ticket, and on the web page where I created the ticket, I saw an URL where you can check your ticket staus online.

This time I recorded that URL, opened the page, and after I had entered my old ticket ID, I saw that the ticket had been closed, but someone from MS support had sent me a reply the day after I had opened the first ticket.

I never saw that reply, but asked our email admin to check for it, and we saw that it had been classified as spam due to some strange header line.

After the spam stuff had been fixed, I also received a reply for the new ticket, but there was obviously only some standard text like, "account has been suspended due to non‑compliance with the Hardware Program" and "all partners are required to accept the current agreements and successfully complete Account Verification".

I neither see any agreement that hasn't been accepted, nor another request for account verification, so I have no idea what the support guy still expects from me when he writes, "If you can demonstrate that the account meets the compliance requirements, please provide the relevant supporting evidence for review."

I also told this in my reply in the ticket, and asked for some details what was missing, but yet haven't received any further reaction.

95

Got an email back saying this:

“Thank you for contacting Microsoft Support. This is from DevCenter team. I will be glad to assist to with your ticket number “ticket number”. I understand that you are unable to access hardware dashboard, is that correct?

I would like to inform you that your Hardware Program enrollment is still in progress because the EV Code Signing Certificate has not yet been uploaded to Partner Center. At this stage, the EV certificate is a mandatory requirement to proceed with the enrollment.

And you will find the details on how to get an EV certificate in the link below:

Driver Code Signing Requirements - Windows drivers | Microsoft Learn

After the certificate is uploaded, please keep an eye on the Global Administrator mailbox, as a questionnaire will be sent and must be completed.

If you have any questions during this process or need further assistance, please let me know I will be happy to help.”

So I am working with IT to sign the file so they can upload it as global admin.

1 Like
96

This is beyond a joke at this point. This is the kind of response I get from Microsoft AFTER the account has been reverified (but still without access to the Hardware Dashboard).

If the account was suspended in error, please provide evidence that can demonstrate the account is compliant. If the account was not suspended in error, then provide information/reasons demonstrating why Microsoft should reinstate the account.

So the support person did not even bother to check the status of the account. How do you intelligently follow up to this?

97

I replied with screenshots from the portal where it says it is verified etc. It was apparently also important that the part with “seller id" was visible in at least one of the screenshots, otherwise they immediately closed the ticket saying they could not identify which customer it was associated with.

98

Thanks, Olof.

In the previous email for which I received this response, I did exactly what you are suggesting. But apparently the rep did not look at these screenshots.

I will do it again and specifically ask them to look at the screenshots in the email. But my fear is that I have gotten a rep unwilling to help, so I may have to try with another ticket. Some of them seem to be more helpful than others.

99

This is crazy, but immediately after posting here I logged in to the Partner Center again and the hardware "workspace" literally reappeared.

I guess my constant bitching over email and on Twitter and here finally got someone willing to fix the problem. Now I am afraid to relogin from my computer with the EV dongle in case it's just an illusion...

1 Like
100

I got my account and business verified but am still struggling to regain access to sign drivers. I opened a ticket through Copilot after getting verified. I provided a business justification when I opened the ticket. I got asked to provide a screenshot of my Legal Info page which I did. Then I got told I needed to provide evidence that my account was compliant, which my screenshot did so they obviously never looked at it. I replied back that I provided that and a business justification when I opened my ticket and the response was:

If the account was suspended in error, please provide evidence that can demonstrate the account is compliant. If the account was not suspended in error, then provide information/reasons demonstrating why Microsoft should reinstate the account

I literally already did all that. So I just e-mailed back again. This time linking the Microsoft page with the instructions, saying I did all this. Provided links to the news coverage saying I’m in the same boat as all these other people, never received a single e-mail telling me I HAD to do this. Gave my business justification yet again. So very frustrating. Starting to loose hope here.

I really want to avoid asking my customers to engage Microsoft for me. I really hope it does not come to that.

101

@GrimBeaver

My experience was exactly the same. I literally got the same nonsensical response that showed that they did not even look at my account or the attached screenshots.

Then I ended up replying to Garrett Duchesne's tweet and CC'ed Scott Hanselman. I do not know if it was a coincidence or not, but half an hour later my account has access to the hardware dashboard again.