Windows 7 - Is there a way to force Windows 7 to reject certain hardware?

Hello, all.

I have a quick question.

Right, my little brother has a laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate (x32). He also has a PS3 webcam (I forget the actual name of it). He is allowed to use this webcam on his PS3, but not on his computer. The problem is that he keeps defying the rule in place, and plugging it into his computer, and using it anyway.

My question is basically asking if I can set up some kind of policy on the laptop, to make it reject this certain piece of hardware if it is ever plugged in. I uninstalled and deleted the drivers, but that didn't stop him. My brother is not very technically skilled, so I doubt he'd be able to bypass or remove whatever rule I put in place.

I have researched this online, but come up with nothing. I'm probably not using the right keywords.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom.

Well you can disable the hardware the normal way, but he sounds resourceful enough to figure out that little trick. It might be possible to create a hardware profile that denies the use of the webcam. Though the easiest thing might be to set up a task that automatically shutdowns the system if the webcam is connected.

I don't think that would be that hard to do using the task manager.

I've never tried such a thing, but perhaps you could try removing all permissions from the driver file (assuming that the driver is specific to that webcam - I guess it may not be).

I don't think Windows 7 has hardware profiles, sadly. Anyway, this is no longer required, since he no longer has the device. Thanks anyway, guys.

Yeah, you just get the device manager and device installation buttons.