Windows 7: How to identify disabled device in Device Manager

When I disable the network controller in Device Manager, the controller is disabled but nothing changes in Device Manager to identify the device as being disabled. When I used to do the same thing in Windows XP, the device icon turned yellow.

Is there some setting to identify disabled devices in Win 7's Device Manager?



Thanks,
Sky (Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit)

A black arrow next to a the device in Device manger in Windows 7 shows that your device is disabled. Yet another way to verify that the hardware is disabled is by checking the device status in Device Manager. Disabled devices generally return a Code 22 error.

Hi Azo,

When I disable my network adapter, there's no black arrow or any other indication in the root Device Manager display that the adapter is disabled. That's the problem I'm having.

Checking the device status by right clicking the icon and clicking properties is not what I'm looking for since I would have to do that for every device to verify that they are not disabled. I want to see at a glance a yellow icon or black arrow or anything that indicates that a device is not fully operational.

The reason is that I disable my network adapter when I need to work on sensitive documents that contain our social security numbers, passport numbers, credit card numbers or other financial account numbers. Disabling the network adapter while I have my encrypted files open, prevents info from being sent to the bad guys in case I picked up a trojan which is monitoring my keystrokes or sending the contents of files to identitity thieves. --- I do have Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus running but new Trojans are created every day.

Now and then I forget to re-enable the network adapter in Device Manager and shut down the PC after working on sensitive documents. On the next power up, my web browser won't connect so when I open Device Manager it would be nice to see at a glance that the network adapter is disabled. This used to work in Windows XP so I can't understand why Windows 7 lost that ability.

Thanks,
Sky

You may try this: Alternative to device manager of Windows
Here's a small tip. If there's really a malware in your PC than I think hardly disabling internet would work as it would rather store the skimmed data and send it to it's author as soon as it gets connection. So be careful !

I'll check the Dev Mgr alternative tonight. That's a good point about skimmed data being stored and sent later that I hadn't thought of.

Thanks for the help,
Sky