USB device entries in the Windows XP Registry

[Daniel]

I noticed that every time I plug in a USB device that is new to my PC,
it adds multiple entries into the Windows Registry. Any insight on the
topic in general and specifically on the follwoing questions is
greatly appreciated.

1. Does anyone have a list of Registry entries that are written to by
default when a new USB device is plugged into a PC?
2. Is there a limit to the number of entries that the Windows Registry
allows before it gets corrupted? FYI, I plug in hundreds of different
devices into my PC as part of my work.
3. Is there a way to safely delete these entries?

Thanks,
Dani

 

[Alex Nichol]

I noticed that every time I plug in a USB device that is new to my PC,
it adds multiple entries into the Windows Registry. Any insight on the
topic in general and specifically on the follwoing questions is
greatly appreciated.

1. Does anyone have a list of Registry entries that are written to by
default when a new USB device is plugged into a PC?

They will be of the form
USB\VID_0xxx&PID_nnnn etc
and will show up in the System\CCS\Control\Classes and in cross
references to that (eg in an entry for a related driver in CCS\Services)

AFAIK the VID's xxx and PID's nnnn are generated fresh for each new
instance (which might arise from installing a USB device into a new
port; plugging repeatedly to the same port will reuse it

2. Is there a limit to the number of entries that the Windows Registry
allows before it gets corrupted? FYI, I plug in hundreds of different
devices into my PC as part of my work.

That would suggest being safe up to 9999

3. Is there a way to safely delete these entries?

I would expect that you would be safe if you had no USB device
installed, and searched for all keys containing USB\VID and deleted
them. But safer would probably be to make a restore point on a freshly
installed system, and revert to that regularly so as to have a clean
field