"Disable" or "Uninstall" a device in Device Manager?

[Blithe]

I have a non-functional floppy/card reader in my Vista 64bit PC that was
installed by the vendor. It was defective out of the box The vendor sent
me an external one as a replacement that I never installed to date - having
no need.

Do I use the disable or uninstall option in Device Manager for the
defective floppy/card reader?

What is the intended purpose of either option?

Thanks - Blithe

 

[Poutnik]

Blithe's previous post was like this :

I have a non-functional floppy/card reader in my Vista 64bit PC that was
installed by the vendor. It was defective out of the box The vendor sent
me an external one as a replacement that I never installed to date - having
no need.

Do I use the disable or uninstall option in Device Manager for the
defective floppy/card reader?

What is the intended purpose of either option?

Thanks - Blithe

Disable is for temporary use, for example
if debugging some hardware troubles,
temporary removing device,
or if you want the device should be ignored for any reason.

Uninstall is to remove any setting in system for that device,
like it was never installed,
similar to uninstall of program including settings.

For illustration:
Similar in function is Autoruns utility from sysinternals,
looking for autolaunched programs.
You can check out the program item
= analogy to disabling device in DM
You can delete program item
= analogy to uninstalling device in DM.

 

[Tom Lake]

I have a non-functional floppy/card reader in my Vista 64bit PC that was
installed by the vendor. It was defective out of the box The vendor sent
me an external one as a replacement that I never installed to date -
having no need.

Do I use the disable or uninstall option in Device Manager for the
defective floppy/card reader?

What is the intended purpose of either option?

If you uninstall it, it will just be detected again at the next reboot.
That option is for hardware you can actually remove, not the
floppy controller on your motherboard.

If you disable it, it will still be listed but won't be accessible to
Windows. Since it doesn't work anyway, this is no loss to you.

You should disable it.

Tom Lake

 

[Blithe]

Thanks, Tom. I had not found the operative distinction either in Vista's
online 'help' or among Google search hits.

Blithe

 

[Richard Urban]

You can disable the floppy drive in the computer bios. Then the operating
system will not see it and will not install drivers for it. If you decide to
use the external drive the USB drivers will be applied to the device when
first connected to the computer.