Is there an Apple USB Ethernet driver for Windows?

I recently needed an Ethernet adapter for my laptop, which has USB and WiFi (of course) but no Ethernet. Somebody offered me an Apple USB-to-Ethernet adapter. I figured Windows would offer the driver automatically, after which I could use the computer in places where only wired networks were available.

Well, I plugged it in, and no such luck! Windows 10 Enterprise x64 recognized the hardware, but said it couldn't find a driver for it. I tried searching online (connected over Wi-Fi), and found a bunch of people referencing this page by somebody using the alias “Tnkgrl.” Unfortunately, the DropBox download link is no longer pointing to anything! I also searched Apple’s site, but couldn’t find any Windows drivers: Maybe they’re included in Bootcamp but not available for download?.

Anybody know how to get this device working in Windows?

Answer

I did a little more hunting online and found this link to a blog that said they'd found the driver for the chipset in the adapter, and convinced it to work. I followed a variant on their instructions, and it worked for me too. Here are the steps I used:

1. Plug in the adapter while the computer is running.


2. Check Device Manager (you can get there by right-clicking Start). You should see a listed Apple device with a little yellow exclamation mark next to it, saying Windows can't load the driver.


3. Go to the website listed in the blog post and find the driver for your OS. I used this one for 64-bit Windows 10. Note that this is the actual driver download, not a Setup program.


4. Download the .ZIP file. If you use a browser that adds the "mark of the web" (IE or Edge for sure, maybe others), right-click the downloaded ZIP, go to Properties, click Unblock (either a button or checkbox), and hit OK.


5. Unpack the ZIP archive. You should see a folder containing four files: a .SYS file (the driver), a .CAT file (the WHQL signature), a .INF file (the driver information), and a Readme.txt. Don't do anything with these files directly, but remember where they are.


6. Go back to Device Manager, right-click the device entry that needs the driver, and choose Update Driver Software....


7. Choose Browse my computer for driver software.


8. Choose Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.


9. If there's a Have Disk... button in the lower right, click it. Otherwise, click the top entry in the list (should be something like "All devices") and hit OK, then click Have Disk... on the next screen.


10. In the box labeled "Copy manufacturer's files from:", type in or browse to the location where you unpacked the .ZIP file, then hit OK.


11. Choose the option ASIX AX88772A USB2.0 to Fast Ethernet Adapter (on my system, it is the second option listed). Hit Next.


12. You will get an "Update Driver Warning" or similar saying that Windows can't verify that the driver will work with your hardware, which may cause problems. Click "Yes" anyhow, for this and any other prompts to confirm that you want to install the driver.


13. You should now have a working Ethernet adapter! In Device Manager, it will be listed as a "ASIX AX88772A USB2.0 to Fast Ethernet Adapter" under the "Network adapters" category, and there should be no exclamation marks or anything like that.

There you go! You can connect to a wired network, and it should work fine. The original instructions were for Windows 8 x64, and I can verify that it works on Win10 x64; I haven't tested it on other versions but the same steps should work and the download site lists drivers for tons of operating systems.