When installing TPM Firmware updates or updates that communicate through a TPM driver, the update may take longer depending on the TPM driver implementation.

Details:

Some TPM firmware updates send commands to the TPM from the Windows operating system. In Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 the firmware update may send commands to the TPM Base Services (TBS) which sends each command to the Microsoft TPM driver. The Microsoft TPM driver sends each command to the TPM. On earlier operating systems like Windows XP, Microsoft does not provide a TPM driver, so the firmware updates may send commands directly to an non-Microsoft TPM driver. Microsoft recommends usage of the TBS and the Microsoft TPM driver on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, however, it is also possible for a firmware update on use a non-Microsoft TPM driver on these operating systems too.

While communicating with the TPM hardware, the Microsoft TPM driver thread may briefly sleep while waiting for the TPM hardware to respond. Having the TPM driver sleep reduces CPU usage which improves the responsiveness of other processes running on the computer or may reduce system power consumption. When the Microsoft TPM driver thread sleeps it may not be scheduled again until after the TPM hardware has responded, increasing the total command duration by the time the TPM hardware responded until the Microsoft TPM driver thread was scheduled. Non-Microsoft TPM drivers may not sleep when communicating with the TPM hardware resulting in a shorter total command duration at the cost of using more system resources.

If a TPM firmware update involves sending a large number of commands through a TPM driver, different implementations of the TPM driver will impact the total time for the firmware update to complete. Due to design trade-offs between speed and the balancing of system resources, a firmware update using the Microsoft TPM driver may take longer than a firmware update using a non-Microsoft TPM driver.

You install Windows Vista before you update the basic input/output system (BIOS) to a Trusted Computing Group (TCG)-compliant version. If you do this, the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 device driver (Tpm.sys) is not loaded. Additionally, a yellow exclamation point (!) appears next to the TPM 1.2 device in Device Manager.

Note: The TPM 1.2 device remains in this state even after you update the BIOS to a TCG-compliant version.

Trusted Platform Module: Both the name of a published specification detailing a microcontroller that can store secured information, as well as the general name of implementations of that specification, often called “TPM chip” or “TPM Security Device” (Dell).

When you have a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) device running on a Windows Server 2008-based computer or on a Windows Vista-based computer, one of the following events may be logged in the Application log.
Message 1

Event ID: 10
Event Source: TPM
Event Type: Error
Event Description: A buffer underflow was detected

Message 2

Event ID: 11
Event Source: TPM
Even Type: Error
Event Description: A buffer overflow was detected

The TPM driver may log these errors when the TPM status register has the bit set to indicate an overrun or an underrun during communication between the driver and the TPM device. Generally, this error indicates a platform problem.

These events are logged when the TPM device cannot be accessed successfully because of hardware issues or because of firmware issues.

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After you install Windows Vista with BitLocker Drive Encryption (BitLocker), a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 1.1 device is not available. Instead, a red question mark appears next to the device in Device Manager. When you try to use Windows Update to download a TPM 1.1 device driver, no TPM 1.1 device driver is available.