Listen up, all you Boot Camp’in Mac users … Can’t find Windows drivers for the Apple USB Ethernet adapter? Want to use use the adapter on another Windows machine? Are you crazy? Well, it turns out it CAN be done, with a little bit of trickery.
There is a lot to be said for Apple’s simplicity of design. Even their adapters and cables look as if they were pain stakingly and lovingly hand crafted by an eccentric, gay, Swedish man. Everything just looks better.
Recently, after the onboard NIC died in my Acer Aspire L3600 (which runs Windows 7 x64, and I use as a dedicated Windows Media Centre). After flashing the BIOS and jumping through several hoops with no avail, I needed to go looking for another way to get a wired >=100Mbit/s network interface into the machine. Since its ultra-compact form factor makes an internal PCI option impossible, I needed to go looking for an external (USB) option. It didn’t take long to realise that my options were going to be extremely limited and after checking out my nearby computer retailers, I had only two options. A reasonably generic SWANN adapter, or Apple’s USB Ethernet Adapter – both were in stock at my local Dick Smith Powerhouse. The problem with the SWANN adapter, is that its a single solid block, and since my Media Centre lives very close to the wall, it wasn’t desirable, while The Apple adapter can be flexed to a right angle.
Problem is, the Apple adapter says (on the back) that it can ONLY be used with an Apple MacBook. But the adapter’s drivers ARE included as part of BootCamp, which means it can function when running Windows on a MacBook. So with a little trickery, you can get it working on any old Windows 7 or Vista PC (32 or 64bit editions).
- First, you need to download the driver for the adapter, either the 32bit or 64bit version.
- Next, extract the zip file and locate the file Ax88722.inf. It needs to be altered in order to get the device drivers to be installed. In order to simplify the process, I’ve simply got the tweaked version here, for you to download. Just replace the original Ax88722.inf file with this one inside this zip file.
- Next, attach your USB ethernet if you have not done so. Launch device manager (right-click on “computer” and select “Manage”). Locate the lonely unknown device “Apple USB Ethernet” and right-click it to select “Update Driver Software”.
- Select “Browse my computer for driver software” and in the file browser dialog select the folder of your recently modified .INI file and continue the wizard. This should bring your Apple USB ethernet to life!
Apparently there are drivers for 32bit versions of Windows XP, put together by the BootCamp community, if you’re an XP user and feeling lucky you can try your luck with this link (but like the rest of this post, use it at your own risk).
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Where is the tweek for the 32 bit version?
Thank You !
Hey, now that the adapter works for my windows computer it doesn’t work for my mac. do you know the reason for that and a way to fix it?
thanks
Not work for windows 7 32bit. 🙁
It worked for me – but I’m sorry it didn’t work for you. I’m also sorry that I cant think as to a possible cause.
Thanks!
Ash, sorry it didn’t work also for me, I got Windows 7. Just cannot find the file in the designated folder. Maybe your Ax88722.inf file is for 32 bit whereas Windows 7 is 64?
This is awesome. Thank you so much! Great on 7 64bit.
dude, you just saved a life, i was gonna choke the future shop guy
hehe, I’m glad it worked for you. I can only speak for myself obviously, but I’ve worked with many USB-Ethernet Adapters before and once you sort this bit out, it really is as good as USB-Ethernet Adapters get! Good luck and thanks for dropping a line and letting me know how your experience went.
Your guide needs a little tweaking to work with Windows 7 32 bit.
Open the inf file that was provided. We need to remove the 64 bit references.
Original
[Manufacturer]
%ASIX% = USB, NTamd64
New
[Manufacturer]
%ASIX% = USB
Original
[USB.NTamd64]
%AX88772.DeviceDesc% = AX88772.Ndi,USB\VID_0B95&PID_7720
%AX88772A.DeviceDesc% = AX88772A.Ndi,USB\VID_0B95&PID_772A
%MSI.DeviceDesc% = AX88772A.Ndi,USB\VID_0DB0&PID_A877
New
[USB]
%AX88772.DeviceDesc% = AX88772.Ndi,USB\VID_0B95&PID_7720
%AX88772A.DeviceDesc% = AX88772A.Ndi,USB\VID_0B95&PID_772A
%MSI.DeviceDesc% = AX88772A.Ndi,USB\VID_0DB0&PID_A877
You heard him folks 😉
Thanks so much for providing this addendum.
Thanks for the 32 bit fix, it works great!
Bro, you’re the Real MVP.
Thanks a lot. Works great in Windows 7 Pro 64 bit on A Dell XPS L321X.
Hey I got the same Dell as yours. I followed the instruction above and the driver was fixed, but my laptop still doesn’t find any connection when I plug the cable in. Is any software needed? Thanks!
Thank you! That worked a treat.
Fantastic. You saved my day
Thanks
thanks! it worked on a W7 Acer Aspire!
Thanks a lot. working great in Windows 7 pro 64bit on Toshiba Sat Pro Laptop.
brilliant – thank you!
Thanks, worked great.
thanks worked great on windows 7 64bit. and i read a comment here someone saying it stops working on Mac, nope works fine on both. thanks again
Thanks a lot. It worked on Windows 8 Pro 64 bit, but need to Disable driver signature enforcement.
Charm > Settings > Change PC settings > General > Advanced Start Up > Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings
For window 8.1 I followed these instructions to disable driver signature enforcement http://www.howtogeek.com/167723/how-to-disable-driver-signature-verification-on-64-bit-windows-8.1-so-that-you-can-install-unsigned-drivers/ Thanks for the clue. I have my network back.
Thank you for this! My laptop overheated and the ethernet port got fried. Thanks to this solution I have a working ethernet port!
Anyone got this working in Windows 8 Pro ??? I could not get it to work.
After finished step 4, my one prompted out “Windows cannot verify the digital signature for the drivers required for this device. A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source. (Code 52)” How to resolve?
It did work, just as you said. Great way to contribute. Thank you!
I need to be able to do this on windows 8; can you tell me what you did to modify the inf so I can see if this can be done on windows 8, with a newer file?
Worked on an Asus Zenbook. Thank you!
On windows 8 this works just perfect but you need to disable drivers signature https://laslow.net/2012/03/14/disable-driver-signature-enforcement-in-windows-8/
Thank you so much ! 🙂
Worked great for Win 7 x64 on a MacBook Air!
Thank you so much, I couldn’t figure out my problem until just now
you are amazing 🙂
Thanks, very useful.
Thanks a lot.
I extracted the win7/win8 X64 driver from bootcamp5
http://www.filefactory.com/file/1w9gwz6xhmwl/Asix_zip
enjoy!!
Brilliant w7 32 bit works like a charm
I tried the corrections suggested above for 32 bit win7 but the driver is still not recognized. Does anyone know how to make this work?
Drivers are fine but I end with a new local network with no IPv4 IPv6 connected and no internet :((
Any help ?
No idea. If the adapter has an ethernet cable plugged into it, and the drivers are installed properly its just like any other network adapter in the computer. If its not working properly, and you’re sure that its installed and configured properly, then it might be your DHCP or other network settings stopping it from working as intended.
Thanks a lot for the driver. It work fine with windows 7 64 bit.
thanks great job done.its working on mac airbook on windows 7 64bit os.thanks so much
Thank you Ash for the drivers and the tweak. and thank you togino for the fix on using the drivers for a windows8 machine. I bought a acer aspire s3 ultrabook and was stuggling to get Ethernet with the apple adapter. it works now. acer support is as good as non existent. thanks guys .
I just bought this adapter after finding this post. After a little googling I’ve found the chip driver page. Untested, but looks like the drivers ‘should’ work out of the box…
http://www.asix.com.tw/download.php?sub=driverdetail&PItemID=86
Many thanks…
Download bootcamp 4.1.4586 and use 7zip to extract the exe in Bootcamp\4.1.4586\Download\WindowsSupport\Drivers\Asix. Job done
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Holy crap. This may have been the funniest thing I read all day. But it’s only 10:12 local time, so it might get better. But this seems unlikely. I think it’s tying for something that I heard last Friday.
“There is a lot to be said for Apple’s simplicity of design. Even their adapters and cables look as if they were pain stakingly and lovingly hand crafted by an eccentric, gay, Swedish man. Everything just looks better.”
fantastic ! thank you so much !
THANK YOU SO MUCH
Tried this on Lenovo Lynx Windows 8 tablet. 32bit version works great. I had to click the have disk and manually select the modified file and tell the system to ignore the untested driver but it works very well.
Cheers
Okay so I tried this on my Acer Aspire v5 122p-0643. Going into it I feared that it would probably not work with the new windows 8 operating system. However I felt it was worth a shot as I am desperate for internet at college. Would you have any suggestions as to how I might get this to work with windows 8?
Thanks for providing the Apple USB Ethernet dongle drivers for W7. They don’t run on my Surface Pro, which badly needs an Ethernet port. Any ideas of how the .inf file might be tweaked? When I go to install, it says the hash is incorrect.
Just tried to get 64-bit to work on Windows 8.1 but Windows refuses, complaining that “The hash for the file is not present in the specified catalog file. The file is likely corrupt or the victim of tampering”. Any ideas?
I have this same problem, did you ever fix it? And how is everyone running Win 8 on MBP not having this problem?
Great information.
If you can’t install the driver at first, try this:
Select the device in the Device Manager
Right click, Update Driver
Browse for driver on your computer
**** Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer****
Select the driver (64 bit or 32 bit) ASIX AX88772 USB2.0 to Fast Ethernet Adapter.
Viola!
Tanks !
For the newest driver, load yours from:
http://www.asix.com.tw/products.php?op=pItemdetail&PItemID=86;71;101
then edit the .inf file by changing all VID_0DB0&PID_A877 to VID_05AC&PID_1402
Your adapter will then show up as a MSI device. I did this to the Win7/32 driver and it worked. The others are yours to try.
Thanks for the post. Great help.
Excellent! Thank you sooooo much!
Thank you so much – worked like a treat!
Yes… thanks. Ive posted the driver online too .. Same old story. Lappy Nic Died. Went to USB 🙂
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Thanks! This worked great! Trying to connect GNS3 lab to external devices.
Hi friends
I have Pc Sony vaio, win7 64bit,
Is it possible to use Apple adapter ethernet Usb
64bit version worked perfectly for me.
Thanks
You are a digital hero.
Thank you for this! My IT guy handed me an apple ethernet adapter for my Dell computer and it obviously didn’t work. But it does now!
Thanks a lot!
I am using Windows 7 64bit on Parallels Desktop 15 and this worked perfect!