Device Manager
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Device Manager is a Control Panel applet included with Microsoft Windows operating systems that allows the user to display and control the hardware attached to the computer. When a piece of hardware is not working, the offending hardware is highlighted where the user can deal with it. The list of hardware can be sorted by various criteria.
For each device in the list, users can:
- Supply device drivers to the hardware
- Enable or disable devices
- Tell Windows to ignore malfunctioning devices
- View other technical properties
Device Manager was introduced with Windows 95 and later added to Windows 2000. In NT-based versions, it is included as an MMC snap-in.
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[edit] Invoking the Device Manager
- Right-click My Computer then select Properties
- Select the Device Manager tab
Windows 2000 and Windows XP:
- Right-click My Computer then select Properties
- Select the Hardware tab
- Click the Device Manager button
- Alternative solution 1: Start -> Run -> devmgmt.msc -> OK
- Alternative solution 2: Device Manager is part of the Computer Management, which also includes Event Viewer, Services Manager, Disk Management, as well as many other things. Right-Click My Computer then select Manage to start Computer Management, or invoke compmgmt.msc, or launch it via the shortcut in Control Panel, Administrative Tools.
- Alternative solution 3: Press and hold down the Windows key and press the Pause/Break key.
- Alternative Solution 4: Type "devmgmt.msc" into the Command Prompt
- Alternative solution 5: Create a batch file(.bat) to run Device Manager. A one line entry of devmgmt.msc
into an ANSI text file with the extension (.bat) will suffice, but you may want to invoke instance settings such as displaying non-present devices by adding an additional first command line set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 for an overall structure like this: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 devmgmt.msc
- Easiest Way - Click Start -> in the "Start Search" box type "Dev" (DO NOT HIT ENTER) and wait for list to show up then click Device Manager
- Open the Start menu, right-click on Computer, select Manage
- Click on "Device Manager" in the left-hand tree
- Alternative solution 1: run devmgmt.msc
- Alternative solution 2: Device Manager is part of the Computer Management, which also includes Event Viewer, Services Manager, Disk Management, as well as many other things. Right-Click My Computer then select Manage to start Computer Management, or invoke compmgmt.msc.
[edit] Hidden Settings
Display of 'non-present' devices The Device Manager has the ability to display the driver entries for a device that is not currently connected to a computer but had been successfully installed to run through a port, such as a USB port. This is useful for removing entries of old devices or performing a clean reinstall of a device.
This mode activated each time device manager is added and must be invoked just prior to opening Device Manager using the Command Prompt or Batch file method. Command line is as follows: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Windows-specific articles
NB: not all articles apply to all Windows versions
- Displaying detailed information in Windows XP device manager
- Displaying unconnected devices in Windows XP device manager
- The DevCon utility
