How To Repair A WNIP Driver Installation broken by Windows 11 Smart App Control

How To Repair A WNIP Driver Installation broken by Windows 11 Smart App Control

Microsoft recently added a new "Smart App Control" feature to Windows 11. When you install a program like the WheatNet-IP Audio Driver, Microsoft uses AI to determine if it trusts the software (and all the components that it is using) are trusted.

While Wheatstone Corporation properly signs all of its software with a trusted certificate, we don't have the millions of people using the WNIP driver as a program like Adobe Audition, so Windows AI will sometimes block some routines that the driver installer calls because it hasn't seen them run as often. This results in a broken installation.

Here is how to recover.

1. Turn off Smart App Control. Follow the instructions here.
2. Uninstall the WheatNet-IP driver following these steps:
a. Launch the uninstaller, either from System Settings or Control Panel
or
b. When the uninstall routine asks you to Choose Components, select "Move PC Driver" and "Uninstall Wheatnet-IP Devices"
Even though we will ultimately reinstall on the same PC, choosing "Move PC driver" tells the program to do a clean removal of everything. Unchecking "Uninstall Wheatnet-IP Devices" will completely remove the parts of the Windows driver that were previously installed. This ensures that we start with a clean slate.
c. Again, to ensure that we're starting clean, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Wheatstone\WheatNet IP and delete the Driver directory. If Windows prevents you from deleting any of the files here, it's got something locked open, so reboot, then try deleting the folder again.
d. Reboot to ensure that all files are closed and everything is happy. When you come back, run the driver installer again, making sure to right-click and choose "Run as administrator." With Smart App Control no longer in the way, the next install should be happy.

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