How to resolve problems with installation of USB (storage, headset, printer and other) devices on windows 7 / Vista
Do you have an issue with installing your new USB headset, storage device or printer (maybe even video/web camera) on windows 7 (with service pack 1)? I had few of them.
Sometimes device is shown as installed in device manager but still it doesn’t work as expected and sometimes there is exclamation mark next to it. When I tried to update driver and chosen to search automatically on internet, driver installation wizard would find driver but installation would failed with message cannot find file (“The system cannot find the file specified” or similar).
After many hours of googling and trying to find a reason for this I manage to figure out that wizzard is searching in c:\Windows\inf\ folder for inf file which should match with pnf/sys file in same folder. It seems that during windows update or some other process inf and pnf file were desynced i.e. exisiting version were not matching to each other anymore. Also, windows error was raised in windows event viewer application log which was pointing to specific *.inf file.
After this, it was necessary to find *.inf corresponding folder in C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\name ofinffolder (i.e. c:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\usbstor.inf_amd64_neutral_26b33263a639795d\) and copy it’s content to c:\Windows\inf\ (overwrite existing files)
When this step is done, try to update driver again and it should be successful.
Video of procedure done on system with audio driver problem:
26/08/2013 by Milan
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