Surface device - driver and firmware support lifecycle

Recently a friend ask me for an updated driver for an issue with an older device in the surface family. So I thougth it would be a good idea first to check if the device is still supported. As we have the row of devices now for a couple years.

The good news were the devices up to Surface 3 are still under "firmware and driver" support. So in this case I could open a case for this driver issue and still believe it may be served. Actually its not a guarantee that PG agrees with my issue and will fix it. But there is some how a legal basis for it according to their own support policies.

Checkout here the list!

Device	Release Date	End of Servicing Date
Surface RT1	October 26, 2012	April 11, 2017
Surface Pro1	February 9, 2013	April 11, 2017
Surface 21	October 22, 2013	April 10, 2018
Surface Pro 21	October 22, 2013	April 10, 2018
Surface Pro 3	June 20, 2014	November 13, 2021
Surface 3	May 5, 2015	November 13, 2021
Surface Book	October 26, 2015	November 13, 2021
Surface Pro 4	October 26, 2015	November 13, 2021
Surface Book with Performance Base	November 10, 2016	November 13, 2021
Surface Studio (1st gen)	December 15, 2016	November 13, 2021
Surface Laptop (1st gen)	June 14, 2017	November 13, 2021
Surface Pro (5th gen)	June 15, 2017	November 13, 2021
Surface Book 2	November 17, 2017	November 17, 2021
Surface Pro LTE (Model 1807)	December 1, 2017	December 1, 2021
Surface Go	August 2, 2018	August 2, 2022
Surface Studio 2	October 2, 2018	October 2, 2022
Surface Laptop 2	October 16, 2018	October 16, 2022
Surface Pro 6	October 16, 2018	October 16, 2022
Surface Go with LTE Advanced	November 20, 2018	November 20, 2022
Surface Laptop 3	October 22, 2019	October 22, 2023
Surface Pro 7	October 22, 2019	October 22, 2023
Surface Pro X	November 5, 2019	November 5, 2023
Surface Go 2	May 6, 2020	May 6, 2024
Surface Book 3	May 26, 2020	May 26, 2024
Surface Pro X SQ2	October 13, 2020	October 13, 2024
Surface Laptop Go	October 13, 2020	October 13, 2024

1. Indicates devices with a previously declared end of firmware/driver servicing support date.

More details especially also the differentiation on device support and OS version support you will find here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-driver-firmware-lifecycle-support

To dig deeper its also very helpful to checkout the surface update history which is found here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4036283

SCCM Driver handling by model

All the time you have to add driver packages to the task sequence in SystemCenter Configuration Manager (SCCM). Therfore it is simple to use the builtin TS variable called "Model".

But to compare this you will need the correct model string to compare from your system.

Use the WMI Console command to get this very easy.
1. Start WMIC in admin window
2. type in: Computersystem get model

And below Model you will see exactly the string you need for the task sequence variable you need to compare with.

And here is exactly the place you can use this:

SCCM automated driver management

Its always a pain to handle driver updates with each new release of Windows 10. The most simplest way to fix this is simply use Microsoft Surface products. Drivers and Bios Updates are deployed simply through Windows Update and all major headaches are gone. :-)

But unfortunately the world is not that simply. And as always there is a solution too.

Simply use the Driver Automation Tool

Thanks to Maurice Daly (MVP)
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Driver-Tool-Automate-9ddcc010

The Driver Automation Tool is a GUI developed in PowerShell which provides full automation of BIOS and driver downloads, extraction, packaging and distribution with Dell, HP, Lenovo & Microsoft client hardware.
The intuitive GUI provides you with a full list of models from the supported manufacturer, allowing you to select one or many models, it also will detect Dell and Lenovo models matched against the WMI models known to ConfigMgr.

How Does It Work?
When the tool is opened, you have the option to select your manufacturer and OS of choice. When you click on the Find Models button, the tool initiates a download of XML content from the selected manufacturer, reads in the XML and displays a full list of models for selection. Clicking on the Add to Import List adds each of these models for processing and once you click on the Start Download and Import Process button the tool starts the full process to automatically download and package the content.

MDT Support
Although primarily designed for use with ConfigMgr, the tool also supports MDT. Here you will find the ability to select your deployment shares as well as dynamic creation of folder hierarchies based on total control naming methods

FEATURES: ConfigMgr

• Site server selection
• Automatic site code discovery
• Distribution point and distribution point group selection
• Binary differential replication
• Distribution priority
• Clean up of unused drivers
• Removal of superseded driver packages
• Removal of source download packages
• Driver & BIOS piloting
• Driver & BIOS deployment state management (production, pilot, retired)

FEATURES: MDT

• Auto or manual selection of the MDT PS module
• Deployment share listing
• Folder structure naming

FEATURES: Settings
All settings are saved into an XML file open close, and read back into the tool upon launch.

How to check for generic devices in Windows

When you check your computer management console in devices you may find something like this here:

to get more arround this you should open the properties of this device and check:


1. Click on Details
2. Select under Properties "Hardware IDs"
3. Now you should see something like this here:
(As my own notebook is missing the unknown device I just used the properties of another device. But it is the same procedure and does not matter if the device is known or unknown).

Here the stuff after PCI\VEN is the key. In PCI language this is the manufacturer code of the device. This is what we need:


PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_5227(ignore the rest for now)


VEN = Vendor ID = 10EC (as example in relation to the picture above!)
&DEV = Device ID = 5227 (as example in relation to the picture above!)


Know you are looking in a web database for its meaning.


Visit www.pcidatabase.com and check seach in the Vendor field for: 10EC or the Vendor in your case which may vary (e.g. 8086)

After you found the manufacturer you can click on its name.

This brings you to this Website where you have a list of all known Device IDs from the manufacturer.

Please Keep in mind that this list is not sorted.

Therefore please use CTRL+F and use the search function of your browser to look for the device ID (in my example I would look for 0x5227  (0x which tells you and the System it is hex-decimal number).

When you know what is the right Vendor and device you have a good Chance to identify the right driver on the vendors support page.


This here is a 90% solution. There is also a chance that the device is either not in this list or the vendor does not provide a Driver for your OS.


Depending on the Driver it might be that a Windows 7 or 8/8.1 Driver might also work on Windows 10. Some Driver types have an unchanged Driver model behind. But it allways depend. Try out the new Driver. Just in case you are able to rollback to the driver before.

Good luck!