How to remove duplicate device drivers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tyler Cobb
  • Start date Start date
T

Tyler Cobb

At some point unknown to me, possibly after a BIOS flash, I ended up losing
my network device object in Device Manager and in its place I now have a
"Network Device #2". The whole #2 designation alone was enough to drive me
nuts, but now the original Network Connection icon of "BellSouth.net" (my
ISP) is also gone and in its place is "Local Area Network 3". When I try to
rename LAN3 back to BellSouth.net, I get an error stating it cannot be done
because a connection with that name already exists.

So... obviously, the network connection "BellSouth.net" is undoubtably
linked to the original network device in the Registry. I went rooting around
in the Registry and found all the driver references I need to delete so I
can reinstall the drivers and solve this problem altogether.

However, there is one more problem. The area of the Registry I want to edit
is apparently System-access only. The Administrator account can't delete the
key... or even modify it, for that matter.

So, my question is, how in the hell do I remove and clean out the network
device drivers and their associated keys in the Registry?

I have tried the obvious like uninstalling the device and deleting the
drivers, but because of the keys in the Registry, when it is reinstalled, it
becomes "Device #2" again.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!!
 
Tyler said:
...
I have tried the obvious like uninstalling the device and deleting the
drivers, but because of the keys in the Registry, when it is reinstalled, it
becomes "Device #2" again.
Click to expand...

I'd be curious if that device shows up when you do this:

To view devices that were once installed but are no longer
attached to the computer, open a Command Prompt window using
the Run As Administrator option and enter the command
SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1.

Then, from the same command prompt, type devmgmt.msc to open
Device Manager. Choose View, Show Hidden Devices. The new
instance of Device Manager now shows “ghosted” entries for
devices that were once present.

This technique is especially useful for fixing problems caused
by leftover drivers after replacing a network card or video card.
Just delete the ghosted device.

Quote taken from 'Windows Vista Inside Out' (MS Press).
 
Thank you for your attention to my issue! I will give that a shot. I'm sure
it will work just fine!
 
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