As an addendum, I did install 10.2.1 MP2 on a Windows 8 Pro RTM 64-bit machine.  Enrollment was fine and encryption started. After the reboot, I was presented with the new blue frowny-face of death for pgpsdk.sys; SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION.

Now that it's confirmed that the latest version of PGP Desktop does not work with Windows 8 RTM, when can we expect a version that will?

We are anticipating that we will have Windows 8 support officially with our release that is coming out in an upcoming release later this year. Our software works with Windows 8 on 10.2 MP4 and newer with x86 and 10.2.1 with X64. But the restrictions on this is that you are not enabling any new Windows 8 features as well. This includes the UEFI boot support with Windows 8. That is also one of the reasons why we won't be supporting Windows 8 until several months afterwards becuase we need to basically rewrite a bunch of our PGP WDE to work with the UEFI boot on PC's.

See here for the related article on UEFI boot support for Drive Encyrption on Windows 8.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH194616

See here to subscribe to the article on Windows 8 and Symantec Encryption Desktop to be notified when support for Windows 8 is available

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH199095

Ben,

I believe what you say is incorrect.  Windows 8 Professional RTM x64 does not work with WDE.  After encryption has begun, on every boot you are presented with a BSOD for SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION w/ pgpsdk.sys.  I've tried this on 3 different systems (ThinkPad X201, ThinkPad X230, and ThinkCentre M91p ultra-small desktop) all with the exact same result.  These are all vanilla installs of Windows 8, join to domain, install/enroll in PGP, encrypt, reboot, perpetual fail.  There is no option during the install of Windows 8 regarding UEFI and the X201 is plain old boring BIOS only, so that has nothing to do with it.

I am using PGP Desktop 10.2.1 MP2 bound to UN 3.2.1 MP2 - the latest offerings from Symantec.

When you say Q2 FY13, do you mean Q4 CY12?  Like October-December of this year?  If not, then when?

This is becoming all to common for Symantec.  New OS versions are released and it takes forever to get working versions of PGP.  Being at a College, we have faculty that need to use/teach the latest software.  We also have a need to secure the College's data and it is so frustrating the lack of support by Symantec for both the Windows and Mac versions of PGP.  Also, UEFI has been around for many years.  Why is it just being looked into now?

I hate having to go to my CIO and telling him: "Sorry, we can't roll out any Windows 8 laptops or Mountain Lion laptops because PGP still doesn't work."

I'm not ranting directly at you, but this keeps happening over and over w/ Symantec.  The pause encryption bug I brought to Symantec's attention a year ago was finally fixed in 10.2.1 MP2 - a year after it was reported.  It just doesn't seem like enough resources are devoted to this product.

Edit: After looking at the tech note you posted, I checked the tech note at that bottom of it: TECH190829.  This is NOT the issue we are having.  All these systems are booting in legacy BIOS mode via MBR disks.  Encryption starts, but then perpetually BSOD's on boot after that.

@d4marist - as with all major OS releases, we anticipate support of these within 60-90 days from official manufacturer release to the public.  Minor releases we try to support within 30-60 days. 

Our current plans are to provide Win8 support with WDE in the January time frame.  This will not be complete Win8 support across every new feature and function.  Our goal for the January release is WDE and UEFI.  The following releases/MP's will continue to fold in support for the other components of our product offerings and features of Win8.

The error you mention above we are aware of as this showed in our pre RTM testing.  

@Symc_TomC - any chance of getting a quick MP release that fixes the BSOD/pgpsdk.sys w/ BIOS boot mode shortly, and then waiting for a UEFI release until Jan?  I'm sure fixing compatibility with Windows 8 is much more trivial than adding all the UEFI support too.  It would be great if it worked w/ Win8 (booting in pure BIOS or emulated BIOS mode) in say the next 30 days.

I can definitely wait until Jan for the UEFI support, but it's too long to wait for basic Win8 support.  

I Agree d4marist, you should get this issue fixed ASAP, I have same error, on Win 8 x64, and bit to long to wait that much for you to get this fixed, and for sure I do not want to wait for a year on you to fix it. Maybe you should hire some better developers that know what they doing. It becomes really frustrating!!

.

Bump.  Any chance of getting a quick Win8 release (fixes BSOD w/ pgpsdk.sys) and then waiting til Jan for the UEFI support?

for me such delay after win 8 launch is not accepted as well !!

Symantec Drive encryption release for Windows 8 is under works.

Most issues have been fixed already, but as per the Release timeline, official support release won't be provided before End of Q1/Q2 2013.

Windows 8 RTM'd on August 1.  We are nearly 3 months past that already.  Can't you provide a MP release that at least fixes the bluescreen on every boot?

Now you're saying we have to wait until END of Q1 or Q2?!?!?  This is absurd.

We are trying our level best to provide customers with Stable builds that would solve a huge number of issues, which took up a lot of time.

We are also packing up a lot of things in Windows 8 support release with extensive QA testing to provide a seamless customer experience.

Be patient.Achieving Q1 2013 target looks extremely good at my end. :)

I just got notification that the re-branded 10.3 and 3.3 are available.  Does 10.3 provide Windows 8 support?

Any update on when we'll finally get Windows 8 support?  We're now over 5 months post-RTM.

You get a +1 for finally including 64-bit PGPWDE for WinPE, but I asked for that 3 years ago.  Hopefully we'll get Windows 8 support before Windows 9 is released...

haha.. Thats funny..

Sorry but probably thats how things really work in real life situations... Our team at Symantec is dedicated to the highest level of quality assurance.. It took a lot of time to get the product into the awsome shape that it is in today..lots of bug fixes, change of roadmap etc etc..at the same time we have been innovating heavily and adding features.. probably somethings had to take priority over the other.. But I believe this is a sign of the amazing progress we are making..

I'm not very clear on the realese dates, but Windows 8 support is not very far

Hi

Theirs been no update since the 10th Jan, we are nearly a month on now, is their a further update? as we have laptops sitting round doing nothing because we cant encrypt or deploy them!

Thanks

Matthew

190 days since Windows 8 RTM. 

100-130 days past the anticipated support timeframe. 

That is neither in "awesome shape", innovative, or showing amazing progress. 

In another comment, Senior Technical Support Engineer PGP_Ben said:

We expect to have a fully Windows 8 compatible release with WDE including the new UEFI boot support in Windows 8 come Q2CY2013.

Assuming an April 1, 2013 release date, that's nearly 250 days after Windows RTM. 

David that is still correct for our release timeline of Q2CY2013.  We are delaying the release to ensure that we get a very well Quality Controlled release. I am sure that you heard about the change in Executive Management within Symantec. One of the things they are changing is the "ship and fix it" mentality. I know that Engineering is hard at work to ensure that when we release Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3.1 it will be compatible with Windows 8 and support al lthe new UEFi features. This is a major overhaul of our product from where it's at today. Because to become fully Windows 8 compatible we have to change over legacy code to work with new GPT partitions in Windows and support native UEFI boot of the OS.

Please try and be patient. I have heard from our Product Management teams that most corporations are still delaying deploying Windows 8 company wide until a service pack comes out and it's compatible with all their other vendor solutions.

Thank you

Ben,

All you've done is made poor excuses for Symantec's lack of attention to supporting Windows 8 customers with PGP (or the re-branded Symantec Encryption Desktop).  Let's not forget that I started this thread in August.  It is now February and still no official date.  Let's also not forget that Microsoft released several beta/RC versions of Windows 8.

Your uEFI/GPT comments are irrelevant.  Native uEFI booting from a GPT disk has been available since Windows Vista!  Windows Vista was released in January of 2007.  This isn't some new feature of Windows 8.  You've already had 6 years to support uEFI/GPT booting.

We have been patient.  We pay you to meet our needs - not to make excuses and give throw away anecdotes like, "I have heard from our Product Management teams that most corporations are still delaying deploying Windows 8 company wide until a service pack comes out and it's compatible with all their other vendor solutions."  We are NOT waiting for service pack.  We are waiting on YOU.  This is the only software we use that STILL doesn't work with Windows 8.

You need to realize that while many businesses may wait, many don't.  Especially in the education sector.

Symantec has missed every single date with this.  It's infurating.  It's early Feb and you still won't have a release until Q2?  What?  June 30?  That will most likely be pushed back too.  My comment about getting Windows 8 support before Windows 9 is released isn't funny as vaibhav said.  It's sad.  Sad that Symantec refuses to provide paying customers with exactly what we pay them for.

When are we getting this?  (Hint: give a date, not a quarter)

I agree with you my friend, they are very fast when they have to charge you for the service witch obviously they are not able to provide. It seams like we have to move to other provider let say check point, been looking their encription software and it seams like very nice and very good quality.

Hi all new to the forum (long time first time, work in education) and I would have to agree with d4marist. I cannot stress enough about the wide spread incompatibility issues with this software especially for Mac OS X and now Windows 8.

I should not have to have a different version of Disk Encryptions Software (PGP WDE) for almost every version of Mac and should be able to have “One ring that rules them all” on the Encryption Server.

It would be nice to have confidence in the product with the MPKs that come out, but like many people here I am still waiting on simple items that they took out of the 3.0 Encryption Server that should have never been taken away. An example of this would be: being able to see what groups users are in on the user’s page on the Encryption Server. All it takes is one person not to be in the proper A/D group and then you have to methodically go through all the users seeing who is where.

The Server should be 100% customizable and real-time. I should not have to look at the server WDE disks and guess if a user is really on that particular disk, I should not have to get the real time status by only looking at the users PGP desktop for a 100% reliable data…but l digress. This is what I have come to expect from this company and it is not surprising with Windows 8. 

Symantec releases their products and rely on us to do the troubleshooting. That being said; is the Windows 8 release going to have an * on the supported OSs just like the Mac OS X (Mountain Lion) has? Meaning that it is not 100% supported and I’ll have to jump through hoops and run scripts to get it to work? Also, will I have to install it has a standalone client install, because if I put it on my Encryption Server it will hose other WDE computers… just like Macs (isn’t this great)?

C'mon, guys.  What's the update?  We have fully built Windows 8 images ready to deploy now.  The ONLY thing holding us back is Symantec Drive Encryption.

When are we going to get this?  We need it now.

And now we get the silent treatment...  with this and the altiris debacle, Symanrec are fast becoming a joke. We are actively investigating alternatives because of your failure to deliver.

According to sven_frank in a thread about Mountain Lion 10.8.3 support (http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/when-will-s...), he says:

10.3.1 is really around the Corner so 30 days are really in the reach for official support.

Looks like ±Beginning of April right now

My question is - will you finally support Windows 8 in 10.3.1?  Windows 8 was RTM on August 1, 2012.  On April 1, you will have had 8 months with the final release.  The "support" being provided is deplorable.  You are affecting our core business.

Just got a new Dell M6700 Portable Workstation. Running Windows Server 2012 on it. Our IT installed Symantec PGP on it. It was booting every couple of times and sometimes blowing up with "SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION" on the PGPSYS driver. Searched the internet and found this discussion.

Really - they have been promising this since last August? Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 were RTM last year and they still have not fixed this?

I've gotten authorization from our Chief Security Officer to blow this poorly supported product away and use Bitlocker - which everyone knows works. Why would anyone put up with such horrible lack of responsibility/support from a major vendor?!

Any updates on this? Looks like Symantec went quiet - most likely from the horrible embarrassment of their letdown.

By the way. Is anyone aware of a modern product that supports Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 for standards and government approved encryption and remote kill? I know bitlocker provides the encryption but not sure about remote kill.

Any product that utilises the intel anti theft chips will be able to do what you suggest.

Look on the intel's website and it'll be able to point you to the direction of products that utilise the chip (Symantec's PGP is included in that list) 

But be aware, that is an extra charge that you go direct with intel for.

I too am disappointed by the extremely slow support for 2012 and Windows 8 - we're having to turn customers away from PGP and move them to other products, we have no choice.  I also have no confidence in the Mac product at the moment also, we've had nothing but problems with it.

Please mark posts as solutions if they solve your problem!

I am sure that you have all heard and read that Symantec is undergoing major restructuring inside the company right now.  This means lots of reorganization with uppper management. This has caused some delay in our releases unfortunately. It is my hope, that Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.3.1 will have Windows 8 support and will be available very soon (less than 30 days is my understanding).  However, we have had some issues with EFI boot support natively on Windows 8 and this is subsequently causing a possible slip of WDE support on Windows 8 with this upcoming release. The details are still being worked out, anyone who is interested could send me an email on this thread in the meantime I suppose.

I'm terribly sorry about all this. Thankfully, or unfortunately, not sure which yet, we don't have that many customers on Windows 8 platform just yet. Personally, as someone who has worked in the tech industry for years, I find Windows 8 fairly annoying unless you have a tablet with a touchscreen. Which is a whole other bag of worms in regards to virtual keyboard support with preboot authentication which most likely will be supported with an upcoming release possibly later this year.

Quite honestly, it doesn't look very promising for a Windows 8 version of PGP. Disappoiting to say the least. I for one adopted AxCrypt as a replacement as I needed something and Symantec dropped the ball. I paid for PGP which doesn't work with Windows 8 so I wonder if I willl return to the PGP fold. Been with it for many years, way before the Symantec acquisition. Looks like this might be the end. Pity (sigh)

What's the latest?  As I said back in August, we need a working version of PGP for Windows 8.  We have been waiting extemely patiently.  You already have our maintenance $$$.

We have all software working on Win 8 except PGP.  Due to our security policy, we can't roll out any laptops with Windows 8 until you guys provide us with what we've already paid for.  We only use PGP for WDE, so that's all we care about at this point.

I need to know when Windows 8 will be supported by WDE.