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Is my Windows computer compatible with DisplayLink software?

DisplayLink software includes a system compatibility check which will run on your PC before installation. This will make no changes to your system and only checks for potential issues.

This compatibility check only runs and is needed on Windows 10 Threshold (2015) and earlier OSes. Windows 10 Anniversary update 2016 introduced a new architecture for USB graphics which eliminates the compatibility checks needed on older versions of Windows. DisplayLink drivers can be installed on any PC running Windows 10 Anniversary Update 2016, as long as it meets the system requirements.

The areas checked are:
  • Primary Graphics card drivers are installed and up to date
  • USB 3.0 host controller drivers are up to date
  • No incompatible software drivers installed. Any issues found will be notified with a notification message, with a link for more information, on how to solve the issue.
  • The system compatibility check can be skipped by running setup.exe from a command prompt with the switch -ignoreCompatibility.
  • System compatibility checks can also be disabled during runtime. To disable compatibility checks during runtime, set the registry value HKLM\SOFTWARE\DisplayLink\Core\DisableCompatibilityChecks to yes.

System Compatibility Check Tool


Download system compatibility check tool

DisplayLink offer a stand alone version of the system compatibility check application, which will check if your Windows PC is compatible with DisplayLink software and notify you of any problems found.

This will make no changes to your system and only checks for potential issues. The areas checked are:
  • Primary Graphics card drivers are installed and up to date
  • USB 3.0 host controller drivers are up to date
  • No incompatible software drivers installed
  • No incompatible 3rd party USB graphics software is installed.

How to check system compatibility on a single system


To check the system compatibility on a single system:

  1. Extract DlCompatCheck.exe from the zip file.
  2. Double click the exe to run the check.
  3. Accept the Windows User Access Control message, if shown
  4. The check will take a few seconds to run.
  5. Any incompatibilities will be notified to the user by a pop up message.
  6. If no incompatibilities are found, the user will be shown that all tests pass and the system is compatible with DisplayLink software.

How to check system compatibility on multiple systems


The compatibility check tool can be run from the command line, with the “-f” option. With the “-f” option the tool runs silently and any problems are logged to a file. No user interface is presented. This means it can be run remotely on a set of systems by an IT manager to check for issues before deploying DisplayLink software through SCCM. Eg:

start /wait "DisplayLinkSystemCompatibilityCheck xxx.exe" -f c:\temp\report.txt

The output file is a plain text file. The first line is a header with program version and a date used, followed by any warning or error found along with the message the end user would get. For most error messages, a link for more information is provided.
If present, the LargeScreenBoostCapable information line states if the graphics card supports that feature and this report is used when contacting DisplayLink technical support. 


It can be opened as CSV file, using space as a separator and also mark the option not to separate strings enclosed in quotation marks.


The format of a compatibility failure line is as follows:


<Severity> <Unique MD5 hash of a check> <Message description> <URL for more information>

The compatibility check tool will also change the %errorlevel% variable based on check results. The value returned will be as follow:
    - 0 will be returned if all checks pass
    - 1 will be returned if at least one test fails. This includes both "warning" and "critical" severity tests not met.
The returned value can be used for conditional deployment. For instance, DisplayLink is aware that outdated USB 3.0 host controller drivers containing bugs will give a very poor user experience. and may lead to support calls to the IT department. Therefore it could be useful to test machine suitability and address third party issues before doing a deployment to end users.




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