Worth uninstalling old device entries from Device Manager?

[Jim]

QUESTION ---> Is it worth uninstalling grayed out entries in Device
Manager for old devices which I recogenise and which I will not be using
again?

Also there are lots of entries for USB devices for all the different
ports I tried those devices on. QUESTION ---> Is it worth uninstalling
those?

The idea is to remove registry entries so that when I do attach new USB
devies then there isn't a long delay to detect them or perhaps a mix-up
in the registry when they are detected.

Perhaps too, access will be a bit faster when access is needed to this
area or registry.

 

[Bob I]

I certainly would remove them.

 

[Jerry]

Remove them all. The best way to verify you catch them all is to boot into
Safe Mode, open Device Manager, and do it from there. For some reason, Safe
Mode has a more complete listing of all those unneeded items.

 

[frodo]

I too would remove them (the "ghosts"), but be careful w/ the
non-plug-and-play section. devices listed that you know you no longer
have installed should be deleted. I would leave removeable devices that
you still occasionally use, tho they will redetect the next time they are
installed.

these 2 environment variables will make more entries visable, but you
still have to choose the "show hidden devices" menu item in Dev Mngr:

DEVMGR_SHOW_DETAILS=1
DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1

reboot after adding these entries to the system environment and recheck.