Vista's Add Hardware Wizard Not Automatic, Requires My Input - Why

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Guest

I am running Windows Vista Ultimate on a notebook computer with 2 GB of RAM.
The machine originally had Windows XP Home Edition SP2 on it, so Vista
Ultimate was installed as an upgrade. (I tried doing a clean install, by the
way, but it failed for some mysterious reason.)

Anytime I add any USB device - 1.0, 2.0, whatever - the Found New Hardware
wizard starts up, but then it "gives up". The only way I can get it to work
is to choose the option to search the hard drive myself. I specify
"C:\WINDOWS" with all subfolders to search and after several minutes it
usually finds the drivers.

This is NOT a problem on my desktop system which runs Windows Vista Home
Basic edition, and on which it was pre-installed.

Does anyone know what the nature of this problem is, and how to correct it
so that Vista finds devices on its own without any intervention from me? If
I were installing new USB devices under XP SP2, they would all be found
effortlessly. Another post on another board mentioned something about
altering settings in the registry but I'm hoping there's a better solution;
the numerous Windows Update patches haven't fixed this.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!
 
This solution has worked for some people with problematic USB devices:

Locate the file INFCACHE.1 in C:\Windows\inf

Right click on the INFCACHE.1 file, select Properties >Security > Edit, and give
your account full control.

Delete INFCACHE.1, or rename it to INFCACHE.1.BAK or temporarily move to your
desktop.

REBOOT

If this works for you, you can delete the INFCACHE.1 file. Windows will not
recreate it.


I Bleed Blue and Gold
GO BEARS!
 
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