USB class

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

For a long time, Microsoft has been mentioning in this group (and various places in the documentation) that peripherals are required not use Class=USB in their infs because that's reserved for host controllers and hubs. Dire WHQL consequences have been hinted at.

I was just trying to convince one of our firmware guys of this, and he pointed out that there are several .inf files in Windows\INF that violate this rule, including many that are WHQL signed... notably many things that act like thumb drives such as media players, as well as a couple of modems (mostly this question comes up around here with respect to development devices such as FTDI/EZ-USB/etc.).

So... What's the current state of this advise? What's the actual fallout if you violate this rule?
--
Ray
.