How To Find And Install Drivers

Unknown devices show up in the Windows Device Manager when Windows can't place a slice of hardware and provide a driver for it. An unknown device isn't but unknown — it's not performance until you install the right driver.

Windows can identify most devices and download drivers for them automatically. When this process fails — or if you disable automated driver downloads — you lot'll have to identify the device and hunt the commuter down on your own.

Locate the Unknown Device

RELATED: How to Use the Windows Device Manager for Troubleshooting

You'll encounter information about Unknown Devices in the Device Manager. To open information technology on Windows ten, 8.1, or 8, right-click in the bottom-left corner of the screen or press Windows Key + X and select Device Managing director. On Windows 7, press Windows Primal + R, type devmgmt.msc into the Run dialog, and press Enter. The Device Director can also be accessed from the Control Panel or with a search from your First card or Start screen.

Y'all'll find unknown devices and other non-operation devices under Other devices. Each device with a problem has a little yellow assertion marking over its icon.

Such devices will oft have the name "Unknown device," only they'll sometimes take a more descriptive proper name. For our purposes, the difference doesn't matter. Although we may be able to see a proper name for the device, Windows doesn't know what it is and we don't know specifically which drivers nosotros need for it.

Find the Unknown Device's Hardware IDs

Now let'due south place the device. Right-click the unknown device and select Properties to view more information.

Windows volition inform you it doesn't have the advisable drivers — that's error code 28.

Click the Details tab, click the Property box, and select Hardware Ids in the list. Windows displays a lot of other information virtually the device here, simply the Hardware Ids will assist you identify the device.

You'll usually see a listing of long strings of characters here. Just looking at them won't tell you much, merely they're actually unique hardware IDs that correspond to the hardware.

Perform a web search for the hardware ID using your favorite search engine. You should find the name of the piece of hardware associated with the unknown device, and that will give y'all the information yous need to chase down the commuter.

Here, we can see that the device is a Nexus 4 or Nexus seven (2013) with USB Debugging enabled, so we'd need to install the ADB drivers. Windows will then recognize the ADB interface and the device volition be a properly installed, "known device."

Install the Driver

Yous can at present hunt down the commuter for the hardware device and install it normally. Yous shouldn't have to mess with the Device Manager hither — just install the driver using the standard installer and it should work.

If yous have to manually install a commuter for the device — possibly the commuter is already installed on your system — you can utilise the Update Driver push in the device'due south Properties window. If the device driver is already installed on your arrangement, click the "Browse my computer for commuter software" link and choose an installed driver.

Automatically Place Devices and Install Drivers

RELATED: Should Y'all Apply the Hardware Drivers Windows Provides, or Download Your Manufacturer'south Drivers?

Windows attempts to automatically install drivers, searching for appropriate drivers and downloading them from Windows Update. Windows wants to identify hardware and install drivers so you don't have to practise this. If you've disabled this feature, you might encounter more unknown devices.

To bank check whether this feature is enabled or disabled, open up the Command Panel and click View devices and printers under Hardware and Audio. Right-click the device that represents your computer itself and select Device installation settings.

Ensure "Yes, do this automatically (recommended)" or at least "Always install the best driver software from Windows Update" is selected. These are the default settings, and allow Windows to download drivers and automatically configure new hardware.

After enabling this setting, click the Update Driver button in a device'due south properties window in Device Manager. You lot'll exist able to search for drivers from Windows Update — this should happen automatically after you connect the device to the PC, merely you may want to attempt it once more if you've just re-enabled the feature.

Windows Update doesn't have every driver for every device ever created. Yous'll sometimes take to hunt the driver down on your own.

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Unknown devices are often a problem after reinstalling Windows on a PC. If Windows can't discover all the drivers for your PC's hardware, you'll demand to hunt down the drivers and install them yourself. They shouldn't be a problem later on on unless y'all upgrade your PC's components or connect more exotic peripherals to it.

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/193798/how-to-find-drivers-for-unknown-devices-in-the-device-manager/

Posted by: bakerfisir1971.blogspot.com

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