Surface book – Windows hello isn’t available on this device

Windows hello is a great feature introduced not only to make it simpler for users to sign in but to also improve the security of your device by using a biometric sign in method instead of a password which as your already probably aware is a far superior authentication method. The clever thing about windows hello is that the biometric data is stored on the local device only and does not travel so unlike a password in the enterprise an attacker would need to have physical access to the device to make any use of this data.

More information on hello found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-protection/hello-for-business/hello-biometrics-in-enterprise

Information on how to configure it is found here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4028017/windows-learn-about-windows-hello-and-set-it-up

All this being said I was frustrated to find after building a brand new Surface Book with Windows 10 1709 x64 Enterprise Edition the option was missing and instead I was presented with the message “Windows hello isn’t available on this device”. I know for a fact the Surface Book is on the list of compatible devices so after fully updating my device with the latest updates available on the update catalog, running the surface diagnostic tool and trying various Group Policy changes I was still no closer to finding my solution.

That was until I opened the device manager, selected “Surface Camera Windows Hello” and opened the properties. On the general page I was presented with a message that said “No drivers are installed for this device” which threw me for a while but I believe this is a red herring and can be ignored. I then chose the “Roll Back Driver” option which took my driver version from 1.0.85.1 to 1.0.24.0, after a reboot I went back to the settings > account > sign in options and finally I now had the option to setup face recognition. I thought great its fixed!, unfortunately on attempting to setup the face recognition the wizard would hang and after consulting the application logs in the event viewer I could see event 1000 Application error:

Faulting Application Name: BioEnrollmentHost.exe, version 10.0.16299. 15, time stamp: 0x59cdaad7

And also later Event 2484, Apps:

Package Microsoft.BioEnrollment_10.0.16299.15_neutral_cw5n1htxyewy+App was terminated because it took too long to suspend.

Clearly there was something up with the app so back to the internet I went where I discovered the awesome team at Softpedia who happen to have a catalog of drivers for the Surface Camera http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/SCANNER-Digital-CAMERA-WEBCAM/Microsoft/

Downloading the driver version 1.0.75.1 and installing this via the instructions provided fixed the issue once and for all: http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/SCANNER-Digital-CAMERA-WEBCAM/Microsoft/Microsoft-Surface-Camera-Windows-Hello-Driver-1-0-75-1-for-Windows-10-64-bit.shtml

1. Extract the .cab file to a folder of your choice
2. Go to Device Manager (right click on My Computer, choose Manage and then find Device Manager in the left panel), or right click on Start Menu for Windows 10 and select Device Manager
3. Right click on the hardware device you wish to update and choose Update Driver Software
4. Choose to select the location of the new driver manually and browse to the folder where you extracted the driver
5. If you already have the driver installed and want to update to a newer version got to “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer”
6. Click “Have Disk”
7. Browse to the folder where you extracted the driver and click Ok

*Remember to reboot after installing the driver.

Hope this saves someone going through the same trouble!

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