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How remove drivers in Windows XP

I have a USB device that I plugged into my computer. I loaded some drivers for it and now I want to configure it differently, with a different set of drivers, but each time I uninstall the device in device manager, as soon as I plug in the device again, it auto detects what it is and loads the drivers. I browsed over to the c:\windows\system32\drivers folder and removed the driver file and the dll file from the system32 folder, but windows just re-creates these files when I plug the device back in. I have tried to update the driver, but it says the current drivers are the best or most recent or something to that effect. I have a second computer that has never seen this device, and when I plugged it in, it showed up as a USB-UID device and I was able to install the different set of drivers just fine. I just want to get my original computer back to thinking it has never seen this device before as if it was the first time again. How do I do this?

raremind

You need to look for it in the registry. If it has everything it needs and the registry is set for it, it will just continue to re-install.

jbobst

ASKER

So do I search the registry for the names of the driver files or something else? If I delete the driver files from the windows system32 drivers folder, and they keep re-appearing in there when I plug the device in, there has to be another location for those driver files, right?

SOLUTION

willcomp

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Sudeep Sharma

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SOLUTION

raremind

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jbobst

ASKER

I removed the usb.inf files from the C:\Windows\inf folder and I had done a search for the driver name to see if there were other copies of the driver somewhere. In that search, another inf file referenced that driver in the text. That file also appeared to be a file created by the manufacturer of the USB device (it's a Jawbone external bluetooth speaker), as it referenced the Jawbone. I removed these, and when I plugged in the USB device, it was as if it was the first time plugging it in and it allowed me to install the newer drivers. So all is working now.

Thanks for the help!