How to find what new hardware was just detected and installed..

[Michel S.]

Hello !

Sometimes, upon booting a PC, Windows displays a "new hardware" icon in
the system tray.. then a balloon announcing what it is about and, a
few seconds later pops a balloon telling that it has been installed and
ready to use.

Nice, but.. if one isn't quick enough to read the first balloon, he may
sometimes wonder (as I do) what was discovered exactly.. specially when
I'm not aware of any hw change..

I searched in the event viewer, but it doesn't seems this "new
hardware" event is logged there.

Is there a way to find what the system discovered and installed ?

Thanks

 

[Ronaldo]

Look in My Computer\right click\Manage\Device Manager\ right click on
computer name and click "New hardware" installations. The displayed new
hardware should be tagged with a yellow warning mark. If you want to stop
the message from displaying, since the hardware is not properly installed
anyway, highlight the new hardware with a right click and select uninstall.

 

[Michel S.]

Thanks, but you are not solving the right problem.

There is no yellow mark in the hardware list - every thing installed
ok.. The problem is that I don't know *which* hardware was discovered
and correctly installed upon system start.

MS

 

[Ronaldo]

That is the solution for the usual problem but in your case there seems to
be something more complicated involved. Check the link for cause and
possible solution.

http://www.futurehardware.in/369091.htm

 

[FeMaster]

Thanks, but you are not solving the right problem.

There is no yellow mark in the hardware list - every thing installed ok..
The problem is that I don't know *which* hardware was discovered and
correctly installed upon system start.

MS

If you are plugging something into a USB port prior to booting your system,
and that particular device has never been plugged into that particular port
before, it will install as "new" hardware. Maybe that is what is happening.

For some dumb reason, if you plug a NEW device into a USB port, it installs,
and that's the end of it. If you always use that same port, you'll never
see the "installing new hardware" again. If you happen to plug that device
into a different port, it will go through the "installing new hardware"
again for that other port. Once a device has been "installed" on a port,
you would ever see the "installing new hardware" again, no matter how many
times you put it in, UNLESS you "uninstall" the device through the Device
Manager while it's plugged into the system. Dumb, but that is the way it
works...

Hopefully that's not too confusing...

 

[Michel S.]

FeMaster a émis l'idée suivante :

Hopefully that's not too confusing...

It's not confusing at all : it's precisely the situation I'm
experiencing.

While I know that inserting my USB stick in a different port will cause
a new hardware installation, there a some cases where this hardware
installation wizard pops and I don't have any idea of what change could
trigger it.

That's why I wonder if this installation is logged somewhere.

MS

 

[FeMaster]

FeMaster a émis l'idée suivante :


It's not confusing at all : it's precisely the situation I'm experiencing.

While I know that inserting my USB stick in a different port will cause a
new hardware installation, there a some cases where this hardware
installation wizard pops and I don't have any idea of what change could
trigger it.

That's why I wonder if this installation is logged somewhere.

MS

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of anything or anywhere you could go to find
out about device installations. The only logging I know of is Updates to
Windows which can be found in the Event Viewer.