Installing Devices Using the Add Hardware Wizard

There are many instances where you will need to manually install a hardware device. If Windows fails to detect the device and plug-and-play is unable to complete the driver installation automatically, the Add Hardware Wizard can be used to manually install the device. The Add Hardware Wizard can be found in the Control Panel or on the Hardware tab of the System Properties, Let’s pretend for a moment that you have installed a USB camera, but Windows was unable to detect the device. You are now going to use the Add Hardware Wizard to install the device. Installing a New Device Using the Add Hardware Wizard In this exercise, you will install a device using the Add Hardware Wizard. If you don’t have a device just lying around that you can use, you can use Device Manager to uninstall one of your devices, and then use this exercise to reinstall it. For this exercise, a USB camera is the device chosen, but the device could be any type of device. NOTE Uninstalling a device using Device Manager only removes the driver and uninstalls the device from the operating system, not from the actual machine. If the device is not physically removed from the computer, the next time Windows starts up, the device will be automatically detected and reinstalled. You may also run the Add Hardware Wizard to detect and install the device. 1. Plug in or install your device. If the device is detected by Windows, and the New Hardware Found Wizard appears, click Cancel to cancel the installation. 2. Click Start Control Panel Add Hardware to start the Add Hardware Wizard. 3. Click Next. The wizard will scan your system looking for new hardware. The Found New Hardware Wizard appears after a moment and identifies the hardware that Windows found. 4. Select “Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)” and click next. 5. Select the radio button “Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install.” Click Next. 6. Select the type of device to install from the Hardware Type, If the type of device is not listed (your camera isn’t), select Show All Devices and click Next. 7. From the next screen, select your device and driver from the list. If your device is listed, select the correct model and click next. 8. If the device and driver are not listed, click Have Disk. When the Open dialog box appears, navigate to the location of the drivers and click OK. Your device should now be listed, along with the appropriate driver, Click the device and click Next. 9. Your device is now being installed. You may see the screen appear, warning that the driver has not been tested by Microsoft and is unsigned. Click Continue Anyway to finish installing the device. (More about unsigned drivers later in the chapter.) 10. The driver is now installed. Click Finish to close the wizard. 11. Open Device Manager and verify the device is installed and working properly