USB Devices not seen in Windows 7

Slartybart said:

I again suggest that you use a local offline pkg to reinstall the printer.

Probably best to uninstall what's there, reboot, and use the downloaded HP pkg to install the device.

As I stated previously, HP does NOT have drivers for this printer with respect to Windows 7 x64. They do have XP drivers for download, which I have, but will not install as expected. For the time being, I have swapped both my mother and fathers printers out, as the HP PSC 1200 works with my father's XP system.
And the newer Canon works with my mother Windows Win 7 x64 computer.....but it does not seem to scan or print as good as the HP. My mother prints cards and pictures, my father.......taxes!

I did uninstall the drivers that were automatically installed by Windows 7, restarted, and then let Windows 7 try a second time to no avail.
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My main concern for the time being is the USB anomalies. upon installation Windows 7 did not recognize the keyboard, a older Logitech...and only worked if I used an adapter to the old style keyboard/mouse cable (PS/2) Ports.

I plan to have my mother perform the procedure stated below:

Try this: SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

It may be a slow process being a 3hr drive from the computer I wish to fix, so bear with me and I will add aditional info as I perform some tasks from afar!!

I should know better.... but I kept seeing Win7 on the HP page - when I drilled down it clearly says what you've been trying to get trhough my thick skull. HP punts and only provides an OS driver. Please accept my apologies.

There is a Device Manager trick to try. Mom will need to add a new environment variable to her user profile.


Variable name: devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
Variable value: 1


Once this is set, devmgr shows devices that have been removed if you click on View -> show hidden devices.

You can safely remove any ghosted (grey) USB entries, the will be reinstalled the next time the device is attached.

Anything is possible..... If you can't see it in Windows Explorer, the only way you could chkdsk it would be in Disk Management - IF you can see it there.

Something easy to try: boot into safe mode and see if the USB devices behave.

dTonic said:

...... It is possible that the device was unplugged from the USB without using "Safe USB" removal techniques....thus a chk disk command might possible find and fix this...

I've never used this, but other members have
TeamViewer - Free Remote Control, Remote Access & Online Meetings

This might alleviate a trip to mom's and help provide current feedback to the forum.

Team Viewer...
I've used microsoft's remote access back in the day, till it went bonkers, then Symantec's PCAnywhere. There was one other program too, but can't remember it of the top of my head. I seem to run into trouble with getting through routers or modems, though I don't think I have them secured as yet.

I will read about Team Viewer with WinXP > Win7 or Win7 > Win7.

________

There is a WARNING posted when running "sfc /scannow,"

warning Warning
Be aware that if you have modified your system files as in theming explorer/system files, running sfc /scannow will revert the system files such as explorer.exe back to it's default state. Make the appropriate backups of your system files that you have modified for theming if you wish to save them before running sfc /scannow.

I did customize the Windows explorer "folder properties" ...to display large icons, show file extensions, show system files.... I also set the logon background to a custom image and altered theme colors via Win 7 interface. I did NOT replace system files so that one could use third party themes. Are these changes going to be returned to default values??

SFC will replace any SYSTEM file that doesn't match the Win7 cache reference. It should not affect any user customization or data.

Run SFC /Verifyonly to see what might be affected - no changes are made.

TeamViewer runs great on both XP and Win 7, even without installation. Amazing. Always had troubles with so many other programs such as these.

I will put my mother to work tomorrow as my phone was out today.

Ha! Right! Now What!

My mother called this morning. She was using her computer and placed it in sleep mode while she went to have breakfast. When she returned she could not return from sleep mode. After reboots..etc. nothing was displayed on the monitor and her optical mouse was not lighting up.

I had them unplug the computer, check cables, and retry. Nothing.... nothing on the screen, no mouse light.

After checking that the monitor does indeed still work (connected to another computer) I am suspecting the motherboard.

I should have some bios visibility on the screen regardless of peripherals such as mouse, keyboard, HDD... right?? ...the ability to boot to the bios...yes?

Ahh computers....and the life of leisure! So much time saved!