This guide provides a detailed walkthrough for installing and troubleshooting the legacy TetherXP.inf driver on Windows 10.
Target Audience: Users attempting to connect legacy Windows Mobile/Windows CE devices (such as older rugged PDAs, Symbol/Motorola scanners, or older HTC phones) to a modern Windows 10 PC for internet sharing or file transfer.
An .inf (Setup Information) file is a plain text instruction set that tells Windows how to install a driver. tetherxp.inf is specifically the Remote NDIS (RNDIS) over USB Tethering driver authored by Microsoft.
Yes, but with caveats.
Microsoft did not remove tetherxp.inf from the driver store until Windows 10 version 1703 (Creators Update). In earlier builds (1507, 1511, 1607), the driver was present but disabled by default for security reasons. After 1703, Microsoft officially deprecated RNDIS tethering drivers for security and performance reasons (e.g., potential for remote code execution via malformed packets). microsoft driver tetherxp.inf windows 10
However, the physical file may still exist on your system if you upgraded from an older Windows version or manually restored it.
Fix (Temporary): Restart Windows, press F8 (or Shift+Restart > Troubleshoot > Startup Settings), and select Disable driver signature enforcement. Then reinstall tetherxp.inf. For a permanent fix, update Windows 10 to version 1903 or later, which includes a signed version.
Microsoft maintains a principle of driver backward compatibility. Removing tetherxp.inf would break USB tethering for thousands of legacy devices and even some modern Android phones that still default to the RNDIS profile. Instead of rewriting a new driver from scratch, Microsoft retained the functional core while updating the security and stability patches for Windows 10.
For advanced users or scripted deployments: This guide provides a detailed walkthrough for installing
pnputil /add-driver C:\path\to\tetherxp.inf /install
Then force the device to use it:
pnputil /enum-devices /class Net
pnputil /install-driver C:\path\to\tetherxp.inf /device "your-device-instance-id"
The tetherxp.inf driver can be a bottleneck if left at default settings. Here is how to optimize it for Windows 10:
These tweaks can reduce latency by 10-20% and improve throughput, especially on 4G/5G tethering.
If you want, I can:
tetherxp.inf is a legacy configuration file originally designed by Google and Microsoft to enable USB tethering for Android devices on Windows XP Microsoft Learn Windows 10 , you generally do need this file because the operating system includes modern Remote NDIS (RNDIS) drivers natively that automatically recognize Android tethering. DroidForums.net tetherxp.inf on Windows 10?
The only reason to use this file on a modern system like Windows 10 is if your specific Android device is not being recognized as a network adapter when you toggle "USB Tethering" on. In such cases, the
file acts as a "map" to tell Windows which built-in driver to use for your phone's specific Hardware ID. Fairphone Community Forum How to Install (If Required)