First of all, if it is only the digital signature of drivers (including other control plug-ins or executable programs), the money will not be given to Microsoft, but applied to a third-party certification body (such as Symantec VeriSign) for a digital signature certificate, which is equivalent to your company's electronic identity on the Internet. You can use this electronic identity certificate to sign the program developed by your company. If the program can be distributed and installed at will without digital signature, then the problem comes. The spread cost of developing virus Trojan is very low, and once it causes serious consequences, it is difficult to trace the source (that is, the developer). With this digital certificate, it will be different. First, the program must be digitally signed. If the certificate has Trojan virus, once verified, the certificate will be revoked, including the digital signatures of other programs signed by the certificate. If the consequences are serious, it is necessary. For software development enterprises, the annual cost of a digital certificate is not high, and all certificates are universal, unlimited times, unlimited program types, which obviously improves the difficulty of computer network crime.

In addition, drivers developed by hardware developers often have to be WHQL(Windows Operating System Hardware Quality Laboratory trademark) for Microsoft. If WHQL passes, when your hardware device is spliced to PC Windows, the system will download and install the driver for you online by default. Drivers from countless hardware manufacturers all run on Windows. Therefore, it is necessary to consider whether the driver is compatible with Windows system, whether it damages the stability of the system, and so on. Therefore, if hardware peripherals want to be "driver-free" (plug and play), they have to do WHQL. WHQL is charged by Microsoft, and each driver needs to charge several hundred dollars for WHQL and each win system platform (such as win 7 32-bit, win 7 64-bit, win 10). If you are not a hardware manufacturer, you basically don't need to do WHQL. Why do you charge? Part of it is the maintenance cost, and part of it is the profit made by Microsoft, unless the hardware is not running on win system.

EasyTrust-driven signed digital certificate