Install Arduino on Windows 8
April 4, 2014 Leave a comment
There are several issues that surround installing Arduino and compatible hardware on windows 8 machines. If you find it impossible to install your Arduino on a new win 8 machine, I hope this post helps you.
PC:
You will need to disable driver digital signature on your PC in order to install Arduino’s driver, which are in Arduino/drivers folder. In previous versions of windows, you simply choose to install on a red dialog that looks like this:
In windows 8, you don’t even get to this dialog. You need to manually disable driver digital signature in a very complicated way and restart your machine twice to do it.
The following tutorial describes how to disable driver digital signature. Make sure you have a second computer or tablet open the page, or print it on paper, because you will be restarting your PC and won’t have access to this page when you are in start screen.
If your PC asks for your bitlock recovery key, follow the steps below under “Tablets”
Tablets:
Yes, we now have inexpensive win 8.1 tablets such as Dell Venue Pro 8 and Toshiba Encore etc. They cost $250 and occasionally are on sale for $200. But are they up for the Arduino tasks? Additional hurdles of course.
Many windows 8.1 tablets come with a drive with bitlocks. It is to prevent people from stealing your tablet and getting sensitive information from it. With the bitlock in place, your files are safe (#define safe //;)) even if you lose your tablet. On the other hand, to boot to advanced settings, windows needs you to enter the bitlock recovery key at boot time to verify you. It’s a long numerical code and here is a tutorial on how to get it from your tablet. I recommend printing the key on paper.
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/21818-bitlocker-recovery-key-back-up-windows-8-a.html
Once you are through entering the key, follow the same procedure as described in the tutorial to disable driver digital signatures, you are then allowed to install Arduino drivers. Congratulations!