Why does Windows not recognize the INF file for my device

Question

I am trying to install drivers on my computer for a USB device. It shows up in the device manager as Unknown Device underneath Universal Serial Bus controllers. When I try to update the driver with my manufacturer INF, it says

The specified location does not contain information about your hardware

I found a tutorial online for manually installing plug-and-play drivers and found the following information:

• The Device Instance Id is USB\VID_0000&PID_0000\6&38DAB3F9&0&4 . In the INF file, it shows USB\VID_04DA&PID_1682
• The Class GUID is {36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000} in the INF file, in the registry it's the same but with a \0018 at the end
• The Service value is not present
• Computer is running XP SP 3

What can I do to install this driver?

Solution

Windows seems to recognize the INF file correctly, and rather seems to have trouble with the device itself. 0000 is an invalid vendor number ("VID"), which suggests that the USB device did not initialize correctly with the system. This could be because of a short in the USB plug, the cable, damage to the device itself, or possibly damage to the USB hub that the device is plugged into.

Comments

[Dave]

What USB device?

[just.another.programmer]

Is the VID supplied by the device when it is plugged in without any drivers? Is there any way to overwrite it with the value from my INF file?

[user1984103]

Yes to the first question, no to the second. The DEVICE_ID is a pre-programmed vendor ID and product ID which are manufactured into the hardware, and absolutely necessary for the OS to identify the device and select the appropriate drivers for it. While in theory the OS could try to load a specified driver, the underlying problem is that if the VID and PID can't be read from the device itself, then the device or something connecting it to the computer is fundamentally malfunctioning on a hardware level, and a driver probably wouldn't help at all.