It sounds like you're referring to the tetherxp.inf driver file — which was originally designed for Windows XP to enable USB tethering (often for older mobile phones or PDAs) — and noting that it still gets mentioned or even used on Windows 10.

Now that you have a comprehensive understanding of tetherxp.inf , you can confidently manage USB tethering on Windows 10, troubleshoot issues, and even optimize your connection for speed and stability.

The .inf file is not the driver itself; it is a text-based script that tells Windows how to install the actual driver binaries (like rndismp6.sys ). Specifically, tetherxp.inf contains hardware IDs that match common tethering implementations from devices that follow the RNDIS standard. When you plug in a tethering-enabled phone, Windows checks its database of .inf files. If it finds a match for the device’s hardware ID, it loads the tetherxp.inf instructions, which then point to the RNDIS class driver.