What's a Digitally Signed Driver?

I'm trying to install the drivers for this new device, and all of a sudden, Windows warns me that the drivers are not digitally signed. Is this something to worry about?

Not even a little. A driver with a digital signature is one that has earned Microsoft's esteemed seal of approval, indicating that it has passed a series of rigorous compatibility tests administered by the Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). In theory, this warning is supposed to scare customers into rejecting any driver that does not come with Microsoft's digital signature, thereby coercing hardware manufacturers into submitting their drivers to the aforementioned WHQL tests.

In practice, however, digitally signed drivers are rarely any more stable, reliable, or safe than drivers lacking the signature. In other words, if you see this warning, just click the Install Anyway button and forget about it.

If the decision makers at Microsoft had thought about it, they might have applied this sort of warning to all software installations, not just hardware drivers. If Windows users were warned before installing software components that weren't digitally signed, we could probably say goodbye to spyware, viruses, Trojan horses, worms, and all the other forms of malware that can make their way onto your PC without so much as a peep from Windows!