Hello Ned, and all,
# Release Notes and Tracking Numbers
The Release Notes are the text file indicating changes between releases.
Next to the download, you have a text icon linking to them.
The ID 23485 is the internal tracking number under which reference this particular item is handled.
For instance, if you take
8.0 M2 Release Notes you will see the first item talks about Dell Display Manager and has (22933) at the end of the line.
# Product Obsolescence
DisplayLink does not design, manufacture, or sell any end product. We are a semiconductor vendor. What is in the end product by reference is not known to us until you send me the logs for that device. The manufacturer may change their design without notifying us, we are just one of their many suppliers of components.
Initially affected have been some products DisplayLink stopped selling 8 years ago, but not all of them are. DisplayLink stopping selling a chip does NOT mean the product is end of support because it's not DisplayLink who is responsible for the support, but the people making the devices: they may have million of spares and therefore continue support it. This is the same way nuclear plants have spare devices for the life of the plant, decades after the silicon vendor has stopped building the chips.
# Anniversary Update
What we have today is a very particular case: new operating system, with new way of doing things... which is now standard. The graphics subsystem of Windows 10 Anniversary Update is new, the fact Microsoft stopped increasing the 10 should not be believed it's the same version. The same way Apple releases a new Mac OS 10 every year.
I know it's not really helpful to solve everything, but that's what we have.
So let me summarise the current status, now we have 8.0 M2 issued.
# What Started Working Again on 8.0 M2 and Windows 10 builds >10586
1. Devices Based on DisplayLink First Generation Chip
DisplayLink stopped selling these chips about 10 years ago. I hope you can understand the priority was to support recent products. I am still adamant most companies wouldn't even bother about such old products, yet we have made them work again on 8.0 M2 because we want our products to work as long as we economically can!!!
These products work differently and are not firmware upgradable. Provided the implementation used doesn't have mass storage, then these now work again on 8.0 M2. I talked with my colleague and I'm changing the knowledgebase article to be clearer on this.
# What is Still Not Working With 8.0 M2, Only on Windows 10 builds >10586
1. Devices with mass storage or auto-install
This is not a particular DL-xxx reference because it's nothing to do our chip, it's the implementation chosen by the manufacturer. To answer your question about choice Ned, the only
product listed on our website affected is the Diamond Multimedia WPCTPRO.
We currently don't have a workaround.
2. Toshiba Dynadock model circa. 2007
These devices are custom to enable higher resolution than their previous generation. We are looking into it now we have a reproduction of the issue.
The products affected have the Hardware ID USB\VID_17e9&PID_0113 (see in Device Manager).
Older products under that same commercial name under Hardware ID USB\VID_17e9&PID_0110 will now work on 8.0 M2.
Please don't throw it through the garden just yet...
Depending on the results of the investigation, I will be able to let you know if/when we can deliver something to address this. I expect a developer to start the analysis today.
# Summary
I hope you take my transparence in the spirit intended: we are working through the different items we can, and reporting things we can't handle ourselves to who can do something about them.
Unfortunately, I don't have unlimited engineering resources in my hands, therefore I have to prioritise what our customers request me to do with with the rest.
Everyone's feedback here has been key for me to understand how I prioritise the engineers' work, so thank you for taking the time to report your issues as otherwise they might not have been looked at: we can't fix something we don't know is a pressing issue.
Kind regards,
Alban