Floppy disks might work again in the stable version

Dec 23, 2014 07:55 GMT  ·  By

Windows 10 Technical Preview indeed brought some changes for PC users, including the addition of a new Start menu also featuring live tiles, but it appears that Microsoft also made some unexpected modifications under the hood.

The existing testing versions of Windows 10 Technical Preview no longer come with support for floppy disk drives, so in case you're trying to use this old data reading and transfer method, you won't be able to do it if you install the testing version of Microsoft's new operating system.

At this point, there are no specifics on why exactly the company actually decided to remove support for floppy disk drives in Windows 10 Technical Preview, but a Microsoft employee said in a short post on the Community forums that such functionality was expected to be added back in a future update or in the stable version of the OS.

Customer complaints posted online

One would expect floppy disk drives to be less popular these days since there are so many ways to read and transfer data in a much faster and secure way, but judging by the number of complaints posted on Microsoft's support forums, it's pretty clear that this particular feature needs to stay in Windows 10.

At this point, it appears that most of those requesting floppy disk drive support in Windows 10 are actually business or enterprise customers, and since the upcoming version of the OS is specifically built to tackle this particular sector, it's easy to see why Redmond needs to take care of the problem.

Here's what one of the users who complained about the floppy disk driver support removal wrote:

“I just noticed that my floppy drive was not installed in Windows 10, all I have is the device hardware ID ACPI\VEN_PNP&DEV_0700 and could not find any once else posting about this abnormality. I know there are some that think a floppy drive is not worth having but I use mine on occasion and would like support added back in.”

A Microsoft engineer confirmed that this feature was no longer available in the Technical Preview, but added that the developing group was working to implement it into the final version of the operating system or in a new testing build.

“Yes floppy driver has been removed from the preview build for some reason. There is an effort underway to add it back to the build. I will let this forum know when that happens,” he announced.

A new version of Windows 10 is scheduled to launch next month, but it's not clear whether floppy disk drive support could be implemented or not.

Windows 10 key features (6 Images)

Floppy disk drives no longer work on Windows 10
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