How to disable Microsoft eHome MCIR Keyboard and company?

Question

I'm an unlucky owner of and Acer 7720G laptop which, like many in its category, has receiver for a proprietary infrared remote control device (which I did not receive with my laptop!) .

Now my problem is that the receiver is detected as Microsoft eHome MCIR Keyboard, Microsoft eHome MCIR 109 Keyboard and Microsoft eHome Remote Control Keyboard keys.

My problem is that this driver has incompatibilities with some programs I use like for example DosBox. When these devices are installed, they cause DosBox to incorrectly detect some keyboard buttons. The workaround is to remove or disable the 3 hardware devices. Unfortunately, I the disable option is grayed out and when I delete them, they are reinstalled on next restart. Is there any way to hack windows in order to prevent their installation? I was thinking about locating the drivers these devices use, but they are buried somewhere in windows installation and I don't have enough experience to find them, so I'm asking you for help.

EDIT: Using 64 bit version of windows.

Solution 1

I had a similar issue and kludge fixed it the following way:

1. Download DevCon
2. Copy the correct version of DevCon into windows directory (optional)
3. Create a batch file containing the following: devcon remove circlass\irdevicev2
4. Copy the batch file to your startup folder - you may need to right-click the actual devcon file and set compatability mode to always run as administrator

*the above could be a security risk - if in doubt, copy devcon and the batch file to a folder not in the path

Solution 2

Have you tried looking in the BIOS settings for a switch to disable the hardware? If you can disable it, then you should be able to remove the device drivers permanently.

Comments

[user3660103]

I was right. windows driver kit 7.1.0 does contain amd64 version of DevCon and it seems to be working. Thanks!

[Mark Robinson]

Great, I never saw Windows-7 in the tags (doh!)

[user3660103]

Unfortunately, I have Insyde H2O UEFI on my laptop. Like many other laptops that use that particular piece of software, all access to UEFI is disabled and in emulated BIOS there are no useful options. I even had to modify UEFI image in order to enable Intel VT-x. I strongly recommend avoiding computers which use H2O!