Thursday, 31 January 2019

How to modify an offline device in Windows 7?


I have assigned the wrong driver to my USB mouse, and everytime I connect it the system crashes (BSoD). Now I have to change the driver, but it must be done while the device is offline. Is it possible?



Answer



Yes, it's possible but you have to enable the display of hidden devices in the Device Manager.
Follow instructions here for instance.



To get rid of that unwanted driver, device, or service:
1) Open the “Start” menu and choose “Run…”
2) Type in “cmd” (without the quotes) and click “ok”.
3) At the cmd prompt, type in “set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1″ (without the quotes) and press enter. (Note that nothing seems to happen–this is ok. We are actually setting an environment variable which is going to help us to see hidden devices)
4) On the next cmd prompt line, type in “devmgmt.msc” (without the quotes) and press enter. This will launch the Windows Device Manager Console.
5) In the Device Manager Console, from the “View” menu, select “Show Hidden Devices”.



Once you find the problematic device (its icon will be faded as it's currently unplugged), either update the driver or uninstall (delete) completely the device so Windows will install it again (with the correct driver) the next time you plug it in.


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