Hardware enrollment blocked — requesting manual review

Hello Microsoft Partner Compliance / Verification team,

We are a legitimate and established software development company incorporated in the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) in September 2022. We hold a valid software development license and operate as a real business with a corporate office, an established website, and a portfolio of software products that can be reviewed on our website.

Our company is fully identifiable through its corporate and registration information. We are actively developing and distributing our software products and have a genuine business need for the Microsoft Partner Center Hardware program. We are trying to enroll in the Microsoft Partner Center Hardware program because our software products require Windows driver signing. We have already obtained an EV code signing certificate in preparation for this process.

As part of the Partner Center enrollment and verification process, our company was successfully identified using its D-U-N-S number, with the corresponding company information listed in the D&B database.

Our enrollment request was immediately blocked with the following message:

“Microsoft runs on trust. We engage in a rigorous set of evaluation and certification processes; as a result your request was blocked. If you require further information please reach out to Microsoft Support…”

Given the information available about our company and its legitimate business activities, it is absolutely unclear to us why the enrollment request was blocked. In particular, we were not asked to provide any supporting documentation or clarification before the enrollment was blocked, so we were not given an opportunity to address any specific concern that may have arisen during the evaluation.

As instructed in the enrollment message, we contacted Microsoft Support. We were provided with troubleshooting recommendations, which we followed, but the enrollment remained blocked with the same result. Microsoft Support subsequently confirmed that the Trust-related block remained in place and that our access could not be reactivated at that time.

We then sent follow-up questions asking what specifically had caused the issue and whether there was anything we could provide or correct. We did not receive a further response or any notification confirming that the case had been closed.

Following Microsoft's troubleshooting recommendations, we subsequently repeated the enrollment. Unfortunately, the same Trust-related block occurred again.

We are also currently unable to obtain further assistance through Partner Center Support. When we try to submit a support request concerning the Hardware enrollment issue, the portal returns:

“There is a problem submitting your request, try again!”. 

We tried multiple times over the course of about a week, using different browsers, but received the same error message each time.

This leaves us without a clear path to understand or resolve the issue.

We fully understand and respect Microsoft's need to conduct appropriate trust, compliance, and verification checks. However, as a legitimate licensed software company with an established business presence, identifiable corporate operations, a portfolio of products, and a genuine need for the Hardware program, we would very much like to understand what specifically is preventing our enrollment.

Could a Microsoft Community Manager please help route this matter to the appropriate Partner Vetting / Trust & Safety or Hardware enrollment team for manual review?

If there is a specific concern, requirement, or verification issue affecting our company, we are fully prepared to provide the relevant documentation and clarification. We would simply appreciate the opportunity to understand what needs to be addressed rather than having our enrollment blocked without any specific information being provided to us.

We are not asking Microsoft to bypass its verification requirements. We are asking for a fair opportunity to complete the verification process and address any concerns that may have resulted in the Trust evaluation decision.

Thank you for your assistance.