Stupid Auto-Detect Hardware

XxGodJrxX · #1 08-10-2005, 12:56 AM

About a week ago, my bro hooked up his MP3 player to my computer to copy some songs unto it. Since then, the auto-detect hardware thing comes up every time I turn on the computer. I, obviously, do not want to install the drivers for that mp3 player. How do I stop that stupid little pop up from coming up every time I turn on this computer? Thanks in advance.

#2 08-10-2005, 01:06 AM

I assume he installed some software to make him MP3 player compatible with your PC . You can do a few things. You can find out what the process name is that is causing you the trouble.

1) You can do this by opening Task Manager and looking at all your processes and figuring it out and then going and turning off the service (if there is one) found in Control Panel/Administrator/services . Task Manager is in C:\Windows\System32\taskmgr.exe or you could just hit "ctrl ALT DEL " simultaneously.

2) Or after you have found the process, find it and uninstall it either by going to the folder or going to Control Panel/Remove Programs .

3) Get "Hijack This" and find the registry entry that causes it to run and just delete it. http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

You need to know what the process or name of the problem is and the process to delete will have a " HKLM\...\RUN " right before the name of it and that would be the one to delete. This is dangerous way to do it , though because you could potentially screw your whole computer up if you are wrong. I advise backing up your registry before attempting this or making sure you have a Plan B if something goes wrong.

XxGodJrxX · #3 08-10-2005, 01:34 AM

He did not install anything, it worked without any installation necessary. I was thinking that I could maybe just turn off whatever plug and play feature is coming up during start-up by using MSCONFIG, but that will probably stop that feature from working if I decide to use anything else. There has to be something quicker and less complex than going through the registry (besides installing the software, which I do not know where it is).

#4 08-10-2005, 01:41 AM

I wouldn't mess with msconfig. That's a temporary fix and I believe that will give you a new popup anyway. Something like " msconfig has detected...blah blah"

Just go turn off the service if you are familiar with what is running on your pc. Deleting the registry entry is dangerous if you don't know what you are doing but it's quite easy if you do. However, I have my entire PC backed up so I don't sweat it.

Go to Control Panel/administrative Tools/Services and see if you can find the service that is bothering you. Disable it. Hell, you could probably go trial and error. Whatever you do, don't disable RPC or Remote Procedure Call.

If it is a pop-up bothering you, you probably just need to turn off your Messenger Service or your Help and Support Service. I would turn off just about anything that says that it delivers pop-up messages to your desktop.

XxGodJrxX · #5 08-10-2005, 02:13 AM

I think i may have been too broad in my description. Imagine you just bought a new printer and hooked it up to your computer through the usb port. The computer will say "yo, I found some new hardware, let's install this mofo". Suppose you told the computer (cause we all talk to our computers), "yo homey, this printer is ugly as hell, I'm going to go return it". You don't want to install the hardware, because we all know that installing drivers is no fun.

Looking through the list of services (I didn't even know that list existed quite frankly), I am going to have to assume that the service is "PLUG AND PLAY". I don't think it will be a good idea to turn that off. Besides the fact that windows told me not to, I also envision that it will turn off my plug and play hardware and not recognize any other new hardware in the future.

The pop-up has been a small annoyance, since it is practically doubling the amount of time that it takes for this computer to boot up. I'm sure there is a simple fix somewhere, I'm probably just not looking hard enough.

Edit: Now that I think about it, maybe it's the "install new hardware wizard" ???

#6 08-10-2005, 05:04 AM

Yeah, it's the install new hardware wizard. I understand your problem now a little more. That's strange that it keeps asking you this unless you ACTUALLY do have something plugged into your pc that you don't have drivers for. You do need that hardware wizard, though for future hardware that you may be plugging into the machine but it's probably ok to shut it off for now.

Mr Gee · #7 08-10-2005, 05:12 AM

Try letting the install run. If you don't have the install disk Windows will probably flag the item as an Unkown Device after the failed install. It shouldn't then try and run the installer again.