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Chapter 5: Customizing Your Computer’s Hardware Devices

Keep in mind that if the driver file hasn’t been updated, a backup

driver file won’t be available. Because of this, the “Roll back driver”

button will be disabled and you will not be able to click it.

Enabling, Disabling, Removing, and Uninstalling Hardware Devices

The USB and FireWire devices you’ll work with the most are the ones with remov-

able storage, such as USB memory keys, digital cameras, and external disk drives.

These USB and FireWire devices are meant to be portable and easily connected and

disconnected. To disconnect and remove a device with removable storage, complete

the following steps:

1. Close any Windows Explorer views accessing data on the device.

2. Close any open document, picture, or other media file saved on the device.

3. Click Start and then click Computer. This displays the Computer console, a spe-

cial view of Windows Explorer.

4. Under Devices with Removable Storage, you’ll see a list of devices with remov-

able storage, as shown in Figure 5-22.

5. Right-click the device you want to disconnect and then select Safely Remove.

6. Remove the device or disconnect its cable.

Figure 5-22. Viewing devices with removable storage

Installing and Managing Hardware

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You can reconnect the device later simply by plugging the device back in or connect-

ing its cable to the appropriate port on your computer.

You can remove other devices that you no longer need as well. For printer devices

connected via a serial or parallel port, you can simply disconnect the cable and then

disable or remove the software printer associated with the hardware printer device,

as discussed in Chapter 12.

For internal devices, you will need to shut down and unplug your computer, and

then remove the device from the computer. When you restart the computer, Win-

dows Vista should detect the configuration change and uninstall the drivers for the

device.

In some cases, when you remove a device you’ll need to tell Windows Vista this by

uninstalling the device in the operating system. When you uninstall a device, Win-

dows Vista removes the driver association for the device but doesn’t prevent the

device from being detected if it isn’t physically removed.

If you want to prevent a device from being used but don’t want to physically remove

it, as may be the case for internal devices, you can disable the device. When you dis-

able a device, Windows Vista prevents the device’s drivers from loading and in this

way blocks access to the device. Since a disabled device has no associated drivers,

you can be sure that the disabled device isn’t causing problems with your computer.

You can uninstall a device through the operating system by completing the follow-

ing steps:

1. In Device Manager, right-click the device you want to work with and then select

Uninstall.

2. In the Confirm Device Uninstall dialog box, shown in Figure 5-23, select “Delete

the driver software for this device” if you want to prevent Windows Vista from

automatically reinstalling the device.

3. Click OK.

Figure 5-23. Confirming that you are uninstalling the device