Part of my job is setting up new computers. Part of the routine is to make sure all hardware devices have been installed. Now, this can be easier said than done, when all the information I have to go on is that the device in question is called “USB Device”…
Now, a while ago, a colleague of mine showed me a piece of software that so impressed me that I immediately put it on my on-site troubleshooting kit. The software in question is called System Information for Windows, or SIW for short.
SIW is a powerful bit of software that can be found here. The application to solve the aformentioned problem is as follows:
I plugged in my USB drive, and started SIW. I then found the entry “Devices” under Hardware. There I found the errant device, and found it to be identified as “vid_0c24&pid000F” A quick Google later, I knew the culprit to be the onboard Bluetooth card.
Instead of spending a lot of time trying different drivers, the above approach allowed me to find a solution, and implement it, within the space of ten minutes.
Identifying unknown devices – SIW
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Comments
2 responses to “Identifying unknown devices – SIW”
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When going to the properties of the device in device manager and then the tab "Details" it also states the device ID and the manufacturer ID. And in the case of this USB device it should show: "USB\VID_0C24&PID000F". So no need for extra software actually 😉
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BOFH: It usually does, but with this particular one, it didn’t for some reason.
Anyway, SIW is a very practical little tool, and should be in most techs’ toolkit.
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