How to delete data about USB flash drives in the Windows registry. How to delete data about USB flash drives in the Windows registry Delete all usb device drivers

06.08.2020

Computer Science and Information Technology

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Co Windows time stores many backup copies in the system, temporary files, old drivers, which will gradually take up space on your hard drive. Of course, you can free up space on your hard drive, but what to do if old drivers for a device interfere with the installation of new versions? Particularly problematic wireless mice, keyboards and other USB devices that sometimes do not want to work until we remove the old drivers and install new ones.

Drivers are necessary little applications that are needed to connect any device and make it work. Windows has a very large database of drivers for different types devices: printers, mice, sound cards, boards, etc. Some manufacturers release their own versions of the driver, which are necessary for operation and not always in windows based drivers can work with a particular device. To do this, we need to remove old unnecessary driver versions and install new ones from the manufacturer.

How to remove a previous driver version

Every time the driver is updated over and over again, then the old backups drivers remain in the system, thereby clogging HDD and interfere with the installation of new driver versions. For removing previous versions write drivers in "Search" (near Start) Command line or CMD, right-click on it and run from administrator name, then in the window that opens, enter the command cleanmgr.

Check the box next to the item Device driver packages and click OK. This will clean up all old driver packages.

How to remove old device drivers in Windows

Most often, relatives remain hidden installed drivers The above method will not remove them. Hidden drivers remain in the system when a new device is detected and are installed old version drivers, and not a new one, which causes various errors when installing new drivers and device inoperability.

Press a combination of buttons Win+R and enter the following command devmgmt.msc to open Device Manager.

In Device Manager, click View > .

If for some reason they are not displayed, then see below how to fix hidden display of devices.

We see poorly highlighted devices in the picture above; these are hidden drivers that sometimes interfere with us.

To remove old hidden drivers, just right-click on it and Delete.
If you have the option to check a box, check the box.

How to identify hidden device drivers in the device manager

The command is related to displaying hidden drivers in Device Manager, old Windows versions XP, 7.

Run Command line as administrator and enter the command:

SET devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices = 1

You can go to Device Manager and try to show hidden ones.

Good afternoon, dear readers of the blog site, today I want to tell you how to delete data about USB flash drives in the Windows registry. This article is a continuation of the article. All information about any USB media ever connected to a computer is stored in system registry. If you connect a lot of flash drives to your computer different models and manufacturers, then over time a lot of garbage accumulates in the registry. As a result, the process of identifying and connecting a new device begins to take considerable time and slows down the system.

There is only one way out. You need to periodically clean the registry sections that store data about connected flash drives and other USB drives. Clearing these partitions will speed up your connection. new USB devices and the operation of the system as a whole.

Cleaning must be done using system program Regedit. It starts like this.
Start - Run - Regedit

Registry sections that store data about any USB drive ever connected to a PC - Flash drives, external hard drives, as well as cameras, phones, flash players and other devices that were recognized as external when connected to a PC USB drive. Here you can delete all subsections with the Disc prefix.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBSTOR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\USBSTOR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\USBSTOR

From the screenshots it is clear that hubs and HDD were also connected through the hub

If you don’t want to clean it manually, there is also free software, for example USB Oblivion. Launch the utility

Check the box Perform real cleaning

We see that everything is complete and many entries have been deleted from the registry. Let's check the registry. Please note that there is no USBSTOR folder.

Well, lastly, let’s look at the USBDeview program, everything is clean too.

Here, dear readers, is where data about your flash drives is stored, so if you need to delete something, then start.

Almost every user connects a phone, tablet, reader, flash drive and external HDD to a computer. When working with these devices, Windows installs their drivers. At the end of use, they are not deleted from the computer (that is, they gradually accumulate) and, just like temporary files, unnecessary registry entries clutter the system.

In addition to this, if devices are disconnected from USB port incorrectly (they are pulled out without software shutdown using the “Extract” function), then the installed drivers not only remain in the system, but also continue to function. Which is why they often become the cause software conflict while connecting another USB device (the system “does not see” the device, gives errors, freezes).

This article will help you avoid all these troubles: it will tell you how to remove the driver of an unused USB drive or gadget from operating system completely how to automatically uninstall all USB drivers.

Removal using standard means

Surface cleaning

1. Open the Start menu.

2. Right-click in the “Computer” panel that appears. From the list of commands, select “Properties”.

3. In the left column, click “Device Manager”.

4. In the dispatcher window, in horizontal menu, open the View section and click Show hidden devices.

5. Open the directory " USB controllers».

6. Remove an old or unused driver: right-click on its name → click “Delete”.

Deep cleaning

1. Hold down the Win key and press the Pause/Break key. Or open: Start → right-click Computer → Properties.

2. In the window that opens, in the left panel, click “ Extra options systems."

3. On the Advanced tab, click the button Environment Variables».

4. In the top block, click “Create”.

5. In the New User Variable window:

in the “Variable name” line, enter - devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices;
in “Variable value” - 1.

6. Click OK in the Variable panel and in the Environment Variables window.

7. Return to the system properties window (Win+Break) and click “Device Manager”.

8. In the manager, open: View → Show hidden...

9. Click the “Update configuration...” button (the last one in the panel).

10. Icons of unused drivers in the manager are colored grey colour(that is, you can remove this driver). Open the following directories one by one and remove unnecessary elements(right click on the name → Delete):

Non-plug and play device drivers

Advice! In this directory you can also remove old drivers, installed by programs that have already been uninstalled from Windows (for example, the Comodo firewall package).

This device section displays installed drivers for flash drives, readers, and hard drives. Transparent icons objects indicate that they are not used (not connected). This means you can safely get rid of them.

11. Once cleaning is complete, restart your PC.

Automatic removal by USBDeview utility

1. Copy this link into the address bar of your browser - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html#DownloadLinks (official website of the utility). And then press "ENTER".

2. On the page that opens:

if you have a 32-bit system, click the first link “Download USBDeview”;
if 64-x, the second - “... for x64 systems”.

3. Unpack the downloaded archive: right-click on it → select “Extract all...” → in the “Unpack...” window click “Extract”.

4. Open the unzipped folder. Run the USBDeview executable file with administrator rights.

5. The utility window displays a list of all drivers installed in the system. Disabled elements are marked with red “chips”.

To remove a driver from Windows, select it with a mouse click, and then click the “Trash” icon in the USBDeview panel. Or right-click on it and select in context menu"Uninstall Selected Devices".

Note. In addition to the removal function, USBDeview allows the user to disable/enable the driver and view its properties.

Removing all USB device drivers

Global driver cleaning can be performed using the DriveCleanup utility (download link - http://uwe-sieber.de/files/drivecleanup.zip).

1. Unpack the archive downloaded to your computer.

2. If you have 32-bit Windows, open the “Win32” folder; if you have 64-bit, open the “x64” folder.

3. Run the “DriveCleanup” file as administrator.

After launch, the utility will automatically perform cleaning. When the procedure is complete (when the message “Press any key” appears in the console window), press any key.

Good luck in setting up the system!

Good day everyone and all sorts of other such differences. We are glad to see you again.

During the life of a computer (or laptop), we constantly connect any USB devices to it, be it a keyboard with a mouse or flash drives, scanners, printers, etc.

Not everyone knows, but every connected device leaves its mark on the system in the form of a driver. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s universal or not, but the fact remains a fact.

The result of this trace can be very different and sometimes lead to problems in connecting or identifying this (or another) device in the future (especially if the initial driver was incorrectly defined or configured).

Today I want to tell you about a program that allows you to interact with USB drivers deeply and powerfully.

Let's get started.

Maximum USB information with USBDeview

As you already understood from the title (and subtitle), we will talk about the program. This miracle of programming thought can see and tell about all USB devices ever (and now) connected to your computer (or laptop).

It doesn't matter if it was a flash drive, mobile phone, printer, camera, ax or anything else and it is absolutely not important when it was, provided that after that you did not reinstall the system.

Moreover, you can see almost all the information that was received from the device and its driver, starting from the banal name and ending with the driver version/file, firmware version, energy consumption, date of last connection/disconnection to the computer, type of port used and God knows than else.

And not only look, but you can interact with it in every possible way. existing drivers and records of information from them. You can disable, enable, remove the driver, watch detailed information, find a registry branch, open a disk with a device (if it is, say, a flash drive), make reports and.. all sorts of different things.

You can download it. No installation required - just unzip the archive. The version that is in the archive is actually indicated in the screenshot below.

How to take off with this? Everyone can come up with an application for themselves. For example, I personally have repeatedly “repaired” incorrectly installed (or deleted unnecessary) versions of drivers for a mobile phone with its help before flashing it (Odin was not recalled until it was installed required version driver, which, by the way, was not installed until the primary one was removed via USB View). I also had to extract the firmware version of the printer and some other devices in order to further manipulate it.

So it goes.

Afterword

In general, I think that the program will be useful in the arsenal of any IT specialist (and not only). Keep it in mind and keep it at hand - sometimes with the help of it you can solve many rather tricky problems in a couple of clicks.

As always, if you have any questions, additions, thoughts, etc., please feel free to comment on this post.

In addition to this, if devices are disconnected from the USB port incorrectly (they are pulled out without software shutdown using the “Eject” function), then the installed drivers not only remain in the system, but also continue to function. Because of this, they often become the cause of a software conflict when connecting another USB device (the system “does not see” the device, gives errors, freezes).

This article will help you avoid all these troubles: it will tell you how to completely remove the driver of an unused USB drive or gadget from the operating system, and how to automatically uninstall all USB drivers.