Generic Device Identifier

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jerry West
  • Start date Start date
J

Jerry West

I am attempting to create a program that will inspect our companies machines
and determine any drivers needed for devices based on the hardwareID,
DeviceID, etc. One problem that I have encountered is a case where the mouse
hardware ID is a generic ID. For example, the hardware ID on a Dell laptop
is listed with the generic identifier of:

ACPI\PNP0F13,*PNP0F13

This could match any number of mouse drivers, i.e. Alps touchpad driver or
Synaptic, etc. The correct driver, or at least the driver shipped with the
unit is an Alps touchpad driver. Do cases where a generic hardware ID is
listed (and I'm sure there must be others --USB drivers come to mind) mean
that any driver/INF matching that ID --whether it is Alps or Synaptic-- will
work properly? Secondly, is there a way to determine which is the proper
manufacturer/driver to install?

Many thanks!

JW
 
ps2 mice and keyboards are quite difficult in this case. one would hope
that a 3rd party ps2 driver would first detect through poking the hw if
their device is truly present and fall back to pass through device if it
isn't. you would have to ask synaptics or alps what happens when they get
installed on a device which isn't theirs. i know that synaptics devices do
have their own hw id on some laptops. note that this will only occur on
laptops which have embedded ps2 devices, desktop machines will never have
anything but a generic ID for ps2 devices.

there is no way to generically determine what to install if only a generic
hw id is present, you could possibly figure it out based off of the machine
type.

usb devices do not have this problem. usb has a way of uniquely IDing each
device on the bus even if it is using a class generic driver (which input
devices will use (HID)).

d
 
unit is an Alps touchpad driver. Do cases where a generic hardware ID is
listed (and I'm sure there must be others --USB drivers come to mind) mean
that any driver/INF matching that ID --whether it is Alps or Synaptic-- will
work properly?
Click to expand...

Yes. The hardware vendor must provide detailed hardware ID if it has some
unique features. Providing *PNPxxxx means that the hardware has only generic
features, for instance, "just mouse".
 
the problem here is that the OS, unless it is an embedded ps2 device, will
enumerate the ps2 port itself, not the device on it. there is no
standardized ps2 mouse hw ID detection scheme, so you will never see a
specific hw id on any machine which has open ps2 ports on the back and no
embedded ps2 device on it.

d
 
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