Question

Programatically locate PNP device and change driver

Asked by: CharlieBis

My product uses MS Bluetooth Drivers.  Other non related products install Widcomm/Broadcomm software that changes the driver when it detects a new Bluetooth radio.  I know the program doing this so that is not a concern at this point.  What I need in information on

1) finding the device programatically by its PNP id (I can always find it in device manager so what is DM doing behind the scenes where is API documentation?)
2) Reassigning a driver to the MS drivers (I can always do this with the Device Manager Driver Update Wizard but need to do it programmatically)

Thanks

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Asked On
2008-11-20 at 11:58:43ID23922856
Tags

Microsoft

,

Windows

,

XP Vista

,

Bluetooth Radio

,

Device API

Topics

Bluetooth

,

Drivers

,

Microsoft Hardware

,

Windows XP Operating System

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: Netman66Posted on 2008-11-22 at 14:57:33ID: 23022618

This is fairly simple.

Use Devcon.exe to reinstall the correct driver to that PnP ID.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272

I would assume the command you would use is Devcon32 updateni <inf> <hwid>.  The syntax is a little cryptic.



 

by: CharlieBisPosted on 2008-12-11 at 16:36:56ID: 23153880

The devcon approach is one I had looked at.  I need to work it further perhaps.  The issues are that first you need admin or at least debug priv to run some of the api's used and also reseting it only results in the following sequence.  Reset, notification of change sent to widcomm watcher, driver changed again.  So now we have a fight between the processes to see who can be the last to reset the driver.  Anyway I am learning in that I should have been more complete in my description of the problem.  Given that I was not I need to look at the devcon source -- its not redistributable so I can't put it with my product.  So is this an answer?  Hard question.  It seems to be but contains less information than I had hoped.  Also I apologize as this is my first post and I did not realize that an answer had posted.  I got an email from EE saying nothing had posted but then the follow ups did not make it clear to me that something had posted.  

Thanks

 

by: Netman66Posted on 2008-12-11 at 18:47:58ID: 23154455

In order to prevent other drivers from returning, you have to find the INF it's using in C:\Windows\Inf and delete it.

You can query the device to see what driver it uses then remove it and delete the existing driver inf and the sys from C:\Windows\System32\Drivers.  This should prevent the device from going back to the driver you want to remove.  Insert or inject your own driver and it should stay put.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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