Device manager not installing drivers

[rhyds]

I have a prob with one of my systems (xp pro SP2) where if you plug in a USB pen it doesn't automatically ask for drivers, and simply installs the device under unknown devices with a "no device driver installed" error. Hit re-install driver and it finds it ok and installs it automatically. I've tried re-installing the USB controllers in device manager, and they also come under unkown devices rather than being detected. Has anyone else experienced this?

[Michael]

It's interesting you mention this as I had a similar problem two months ago. Again, (coincidentally) it was a USB flash device which Windows XP detected but no drivers were installed.

 

To get around the problem I went into Control Panel > Add Hardware

 

Windows scanned for any connected/new devices and eventually it found the USB flash device. After this there were no problems, but as to why Windows didn't install a driver in the first place I'll never know

[speckytecky]

BIOS update might help?

[Michael]

I can't see how updating the BIOS would help, unless you're seeing something I am not speckytecky?

 

The issue is driver related, as Windows detects the USB device but then doesn't do anything. It should initialise an available driver and allocate the next available drive letter automatically.

 

There could be numerous reasons why it's happened to both rhyds and myself, but don't you just love Windows!

[SYNACK]

It may be that these two problem machines have lost the default driver search path or that it has been reconfigured to a location that no longer exists.

 

When Windows first picks up the device it only searchs its configured driver paths where as the GUI automaticlly find drivers bit can also scan through the hard drive as well.

 

Plug and Play can search all the .inf files for the most suitable device driver to install for a particular device. Plug and Play does not stop its search on the first match that Plug and Play finds. Plug and Play continues to search all the .inf files that are listed in the search path of Plug and Play, as defined in the following registry entry:

HKEY-LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

DevicePath:Reg_Expand_SZ:%Systemroot%\Inf

 

NOTE: By default, the preceding registry location only contains this single entry, however, extra paths may be appended to this entry when you perform an unattended Setup and the OemPnpDriversPath = parameter is used in the Unattended Answer file.

 

On a side note I also found this rather interesting page about imaging driver setups with some scripts that list avalible aditional drivers that are installed on an image which could be handy to someone.

Edited March 25, 2008 by SYNACK

[Michael]

Interesting quote SYNACK about the default driver search path. Definitely something to remember if I come across the problem again. I am presuming rhyds's problem is solved?

[rhyds]

I've given up and re-installed XP and it now seems ok. The USB pen would always appear in dev manager, and if you instructed the PC to find the driver automatically, it would. The problem was when a non-admin user connected a USB pen, as they didn't have device manager rights, and thus couldn't install the drivers.