SP3 for Corporate use, ethernet adapter hardware

[Olivier S]

Dear community members,

I'm working for the IT of a WW company and we are looking for implementing the SP3 in our Microsoft infrastructre.

We experienced some trouble with large market devices (like the Dell XPS13) to integrate it in our environment as the ethernet adapter device hardware change very oftenly so we had to update SCCM boot media several times in a year to integrate new ethernet adapter driver...

Do you know if the ethernet adapter hardware change oftenly or is it the same hardware for all the SP3 lifecycle?

Thank you in advance

Best regards

 

[GreyFox7]

To date there has been no hardware change on the SP3.

Dell does have models that generally maintain stable hardware but the XPS line isn't on of them.

 

[jnjroach]

There is an official Surface Blog for IT Pros here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/surface/

As far as the Ethernet Adapter, they have used the same on in the SP1 - SP3 and have committed the SP4 would be compatible with all o the accessories of the SP 3. The key is using only the Official One as the drivers are signed and native in the Secure Boot UEFI Firmware.

Here is informative post for Enterprise Deployments:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/...pro-3-using-microsoft-deployment-toolkit.aspx

The issue you're running into with the XPS line is it is Dell's Prosumer/Enthusiast line not a corporate line.

 

[kevinlevrone]

Do you know if the ethernet adapter hardware change oftenly or is it the same hardware for all the SP3 lifecycle?

The Surface Pro 3 has no internal Ethernet adapter. You must use an external Ethernet to USB adapter of your choice, if you want to connect the SP3 devices via Ethernet (and not via Wi-Fi), with all the good and bad consequences that derive from this.

 

[jnjroach]

The Surface Pro 3 has no internal Ethernet adapter. You must use an external Ethernet to USB adapter of your choice, if you want to connect the SP3 devices via Ethernet (and not via Wi-Fi), with all the good and bad consequences that derive from this.

You are partially correct, the Ethernet adapter is external, but for the OP's use case he has no choice but to use the Official Surface Ethernet Adapter as no other will work in Pre-boot or PXE.