Removing Drivers from Wizard Hardware Lists

ID: Q137377

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows 98

SYMPTOMS

After you install one or more Windows 3.1 device drivers in Windows, the devices associated with those Windows 3.1 drivers may appear in the Windows hardware lists. These hardware lists appear in the Add New Hardware Wizard that is started by double-clicking the Add New Hardware icon in Control Panel, and in other wizards such as the Add Printer and Install New Modem Wizards.

If Windows includes a driver for the same device for which you installed a Windows 3.1 driver, it may be difficult to distinguish between the Windows 3.1 driver and the Windows driver in the hardware lists.

CAUSE

When you install a Windows 3.1 device driver in Windows, an Oem<n>.inf file is created, where <n> is an incremental number starting at 0. The presence of an Oem<n>.inf file causes the device to appear in the hardware lists.

Because Windows 3.1 setup information (.inf) files do not conform to the Windows setup information file format, Windows may be unable to clearly identify the drivers associated with one of these files.

RESOLUTION

To remove all Windows 3.1 drivers from the hardware lists, rename all the Oem<n>.inf files in the Windows\Inf folder. Doing so does not affect the Windows 3.1 drivers that you currently have installed, but does prevent you from reinstalling the drivers without the original Oemsetup.inf files included with each driver.

To rename the Oem<n>.inf files in the Windows\Inf folder, type the following commands at a command prompt, pressing ENTER after each command:

cd \windows\inf
ren oem?.inf oem?.xxx

If there are more than 10 Oem<n>.inf files, you must also type the following command:

ren oem??.inf oem??.xxx

NOTE: Do not use the oem*.inf wildcard designation in place of Oem?.inf and Oem??.inf. Doing so may cause the wrong files to be renamed.

If there are no Oem<n>.inf files in the Windows\Inf folder, you can force Windows to rebuild the entire driver information database by renaming the Drvdata.bin and Drvidx.bin files in the Windows\Inf folder. To do so, type the following commands at a command prompt, pressing ENTER after each command:

cd \windows\inf
ren drvdata.bin drvdata.xxx
ren drvidx.bin drvidx.xxx

After you rename these files, the driver information database will be rebuilt the next time the hardware lists are displayed.

MORE INFORMATION

Windows setup information files can contain a key that identifies the manufacturer of the associated driver, and that distinguishes that driver from drivers included with Windows. This lets you install third-party Windows drivers without creating confusion when you view the hardware lists.

For example, if you have a third-party Windows driver for the Hewlett- Packard LaserJet 4M printer installed, you see two lines similar to the following lines when you view the hardware list in the Add New Hardware or Add Printer Wizard:

HP LaserJet 4 (Microsoft)
HP LaserJet 4 (Hewlett-Packard)


Keywords          : kb3rdparty kbhw win95 win98 
Version           : 95
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: January 22, 1999