Webcamgate Was My Fault

Several years back, Microsoft launched a widely-mocked marketing campaign in which PC users claimed that "Windows 7 was my idea." In the same spirit, I'd like to formally apologize to Windows 10 users. Because Webcamgate was my fault.

Webcamgate is the name I've given to the recently-reported problem with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, where upgrading has broken millions of webcams from around the world. Hey, I'm a writer.

If you watch Windows Weekly or What the Tech, you may recall that over a period of about three months this year, I had problems with my webcam: Each time I connected via Skype, the video would freeze after about 10 seconds. If you use Skype, you may know that this the time at which a video call switches from SD (standard definition) to HD, in my case to 1080p, since like most podcasters, I use a Logitech C920 webcam.

Troubleshooting kicked in. Hey, I'm a geek.

My initial inclination was to believe that Intel's Skylake chipset was at fault. That may seem like a strange culprit in retrospect, but remember that I'd been using a Skylake-based NUC for most of the year (still am) and that I am privy to some very serious issues between Windows and Skylake. Issues that were so serious that Microsoft initially refused to support Skylake on Windows 7/8.x. Issues so serious that they undermined the launch of the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, the first Skylake-based PCs.

For the NUC, I went with Skylake against all reason and common sense. This is, after all, a desktop PC, mini though it may be. So while Skylake offers some modest power management savings over previous-generation chips, I should have simply went with a NUC based on one of those previous-generation chips. But I didn't, because the alure of the new is strong. Hey, I'm a nerd.

My initial NUC experiences were mostly very positive. And I remain a fan of this device type, and of its mini form factor. But I've had issues. Not me. I mean, the NUC.

So here's the kicker. Check out the article BYOPC: Expanding the Intel NUC and Troubleshooting a USB Problem, which was written in mid-May. In it, I write the following:

"Twice now, I’ve used the Intel Driver Update utility to upgrade the NUC with the latest drivers. And each time I've done this, video (via a USB-based Logitech HP Pro C920) has stopped working in Skype. Since I record two podcasts each week, this is a problem."

Yes, that's right. I experienced Webcamgate as far back as early May. Hey, I'm an idiot.

Well, not completely. "I’m not 100 percent sure it’s Intel’s drivers, I guess," I wrote at the time. "But I’m pretty sure: When I use the stock Windows 10 drivers (which, yes, of course come from Intel as well), everything works fine. When I use the Intel Driver Update Utility to update the drivers, USB video stops working."

So, yes, I blamed Skylake. I blamed Skylake because Skylake was the source of everything that was wrong with my world in the first half of 2016.

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