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Friday, January 11, 2008

Windows Driver Uninstall: "Failed to uninstall the device. The device may be required to boot up the computer."

Solution for receiving the following error message:

"Failed to uninstall the device. The device may be required to boot up the computer."
When trying to uninstall devices...

(Click on certain images, if they are hard to read.)
---- Solution 1 ----
(Will Remove Driver For Good!)
(More Advanced, if you are not sure, please comment!, screwing up the registry is sometimes irreversible)
Open device manager (either from control panel or type 'devmgmt.msc' in Run...)
Right click on the device that you are tying to uninstall
Choose 'Properties'
Goto 'Details' Tab



Make Note of the Boxed Region In the Following Image (the "code")
(Format, if no image, ???\??????????\?????????)
(Note: the whole phrase will need to be noted, you can just leave this window in the background)



Open Regedit (Start -> Run -> regedit)
Goto "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum"



Now the noted "Code" comes into use...
Within Enum, goto the "folder" that first appears in the "code"
For the above example I would expand/goto the folder HID
Then from within that folder expand/choose the next part (after first '\') of the "code"
Then, if applicable, choose the sub-folder (following the 2nd '\') of the "code"

For the example above (HID\VID_413C&PID_2003\6&348914A4&0&000), I would choose


Right click on the "folder" and choose delete.
(Note: If there is only one sub-folder, go one folder up! (VID_413C&PID_2003)
If you get a security access error, please continue, if not then congrats, your driver is successfully deleted.

-- Security Access Fix --

Right click on the "folder" that you tried to delete
Select "Permissions..."
Choose 'Everyone'
Check "Full Control" under "Allow"



Click "Apply"
Now try to delete the "folder" again and should successfully delete!

If you are having trouble with any of the above steps, please comment!
If this successfully fixed you problem, feel free to comment also!


---- Solution 2 ----
(Quick and Dirty, Not Recommended!)
Open device manager (either from control panel or type 'devmgmt.msc' in Run...)
Right click on the device that you are tying to uninstall
Choose 'Update Driver'

Then choose:
Install From Specific Location

Click Next
Choose "Don't Search, I will choose the driver to install."
Click Next
Choose a Random Driver from the category of your current device.
(NOT RECOMMENDED!!)


The second solution, was mainly for advanced users, with an alternate idea of how to do it, it was not intended to be a step-by-step instruction.

Thanks For Reading! Hope It Helps!
-James Hartig

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

First step worked perfrectly. Thanks heaps, I was losing a fair bit of hair because of this :P

Softronix said...

Thanks James it worked very well. You have put it in very detail, first option worked well. many thanks.


Salik

Anonymous said...

This worked great. I have been a system admin for a while. you learn new things all of the time and forget them as soon as they are fixed. I'm glad you wrote it down. Thanks again.

Unknown said...

I agree, this was definitely useful information!

Thanks

Mihai P said...

Very much appreciated, all the best!

Mihai P said...

Very much appreciated, all the best!

Unknown said...

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you so much. The first step worked great. I took it to a Acer service shop and the people told me to reformat my ACER Aspire 4710 laptop. Thank god i did not do that. This has been a super helpful thread.

Járai Csaba said...

Useful info, thanks a lot! First option worked great!