XP problem-please help.

I run XP. Recently, when I start XP, I get a popup that says “Found New Hardware”. I allowed it to try to install it which is a printer, but the installation fails. I checked the box to not try again, but it comes up every time that I start XP. I don’t have any new printers to install either. My printer works fine.
Does anyone have any idea how I can get the New Hardware wizard to stop coming up?
Thanks for the help.

It could be anything! It’s hard to say as I am not an IT Pro. I had a similar problem with my old XP computer. It kept on coming every time I turned on my computer so I bought a new Windows 7 computer.

OK I am shooting from the hip here, but there are 2 thing that might be happening here.

  1. ) Even if the printer is working fine and the program opens and all that, a driver was not totally installed.
  2. ) There are remnants of an old printer program

What you can do is to uninstall your current printer program and drivers and see if the “New hardware found” window shows up again. If it does, go to My PC > properties > Hardware > Device manager > View > Show hidden devices and look for the guilty device that is given the error and remove it.

Otherwise reinstalling the printer program and drivers should remove the popup.

Thanks for the instructions. I tried it but it doesn’t seem to work.

I turned off my printer when I started the computer and I still get the “found hardware-printer” notice.

Try this,To disable New Found Hardware; Start>Run>Services.msc>Shell Hardware Detection>Disable>Apply>Stop.

This will also disable autoplay on your CD/DVD drives.

If it works, make a new restore point.

Thanks–I tried this but it had no effect.

It doesn’t have to printer. Could be another device that is giving the problem.
Check device manager and let us know where the exclamation (!) mark or the red cross is.
A attach screenshot would really help.

What printer make/model do you have?
Is it connected through usb?
What other (usb) devices have you hooked up? (perhaps a hub)

You are thinking like me Eddy:

My suggestion to uninstall the printer, besides it only takes 15 min to uninstall and reinstall, was to discard it from the equation.

Sorry for the delay in responding and thanks for the help.

I uninstalled and reinstalled the printer and it didn’t help.

Attached is a picture of the device manager. There is only a red X on the network adapters for wireless because I have disabled them as I don’t use wireless.

While printer was uninstalled did the popup come out ?

Click “View” in Device manager and click “Show hidden devices”. Any device with X, ?, or ! mark ?

While the printer was uninstalled, the popup continued to come out.

There are two items in Device Manager with an !:

Under “Printers” there is “!Unknown Device” with properties that say “not configured correctly-code 1”. (Note, also under “Printer” there is my Okidata Printer that I use and it is working OK.)

Under “Mice and other pointing devices” there is Alps Touch Pad with properties that say “not working, does not have all its drivers-code 24”. I would like to get this working if you can instruct me.

A ! means the device has a problem, but it can work correctly anyway.

Code 1 means the evise is not configure correctly and code 24 could mean different things; It is not present. It does not work correctly, or does not have the driver installed.

The problem is to find the unknown device with code 1.

For the Alps Touch Pad you need to find the drivers for it to install it. Do you have the disc that came with the laptop ? The original drivers should be in there.

How do I find the unknown device?

I have the driver for Alps Touch Pad and ran the program again, but it still does not work.

I got the Alps Touch Pad to work.

Just have to get rid of the other problem ie the printer.

Well, I dealt with the problem of the unknown printer by just uninstalling it in device manager. Now the computer is working fine.

Thank you for the help.

No problem. You are welcome. Glad it worked out and all is good now.

Are you still getting that message as , strangely , it does seem to have conincided with the
recent update for microsoft

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890830

Have you considered that and did you take that on with your Patches?

Of interest, has your Avast program stopped running at all ?

Well, that link above points to the mrt.exe file, which Microsoft offers with every monthly update on Tuesday. As this is optional (can be declined by the admin user) and is deployed by Microsoft to catch and remove unwanted malware in all currently supported operating systems, it would seem as if you may have had a bout with some malware on your system, and consequently may be blaming Microsoft for issues originating from the presence of malware that this tool detected and removed after running this tool?

Malware not completely removed will cause operating issues that seem random and are difficult to pin down with any certainty as to what is causing what. It isn’t likely that the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool is the cause of any issues you are seeing.

Start a new topic in viruses and worm section and ask for help from essexboy for your system, I say.