Categories: Windows 11 & Windows 10Windows Server

SOLVED: Core Isolation Memory Integrity Incompatible Drivers WDCSAM64_PREWIN8.SYS

If you are trying to tighten up your security by adding Virtualization-Based Security (aka VBS) to your Windows 11 you might find this error:

Core Isolation  Memory Integrity
Incompatible Drivers WDCSAM64_PREWIN8.SYS

Driver date: 11/29/2017
Driver version: 1.2.0.0

Published name: oem26.inf

This is an old driver that ships with both Windows 10 and Windows 11 and very few people need it.  In fact we have never run into a situation of any machine using WDCSAM64_PREWIN8.SYS .

Fortunately, it is very easy to remove:

  1. RIGHT click on the START button and select WINDOWS TERMINAL (ADMIN)
    • If you are on Windows 10, select POWERSHELL (ADMIN)
  2. You can then list all of the drivers on your computer using pnputil /enum-drivers and find the one with WDCSAM64_PREWIN8.SYS or you can just look at the error message.  In my case the driver that needs to go is OEM26.INF
  3. Uninstall the driver using pnputil /delete-driver oem<XX>.inf

You do NOT need a reboot so you can immediately retry to enable CORE ISOLATION and you should see a prompt to reboot once Core Isolation > Memory Integrity is turned ON.

View Comments

  • No need to use pnputil /enum-drivers to identify the oemNN.inf. There is a dropdown next to the offending driver name and it tells you the .inf name that needs addressing.

  • This works great. You need to lookup to see what driver it's for, mine was a USB Wireless Internet Antenna and wasn't needed anyway so I deleted it and it fixed my issues. However if you still have issues, I recommend going directly into Advanced Startup and boot into BIOS to check your CMOS and Safe Boot as well as Virtualization On/Off settings as well as Hypervisor in Services or Hyper-V. If you have Windows 10/11 and don't sideload Linux, which there's no reason to anymore for developers who can just run a container/Docker solution/VMs and of course WSL.exe - WSL v2 - Ubuntu (or whatever installed linux flavor you prefer to run linux very well on Windows Subsystems or WSL.

  • This was good advice. It worked on my Asus workstation with WD drives in RAID5. Have been working through several computers with different configurations to complete Win 11 upgrade and enable VBS.

  • Failed to delete driver package: One or more devices are presently installed using the specified INF.

  • Very thanks, I found a lot of methods to solve this problem but didn't work. U gave a useful method.

  • i have 26oem.inf like hw_usbdev.info or Huawei incorporated, i don´t found the driver WDCSAM64_PREWIN8.SYS.

  • Thank you! It was very useful. I had the same problem as in another comment, receiving the "access denied" message while trying to delete the file. That's strange because I'm the owner of the laptop and am supposed to be the administrator. But tried executing the windows terminal as administrator and could delete the file. In Windows 11, before executing the terminal, choose the option as administrator.

  • thanks Ian Matthews. I've been trying to phrase my search phrase just right to find this information for 24 hours! I finally achieved! thank you much for this info.

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Published by
Ian Matthews
3 years ago

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