MakeUseOf » device manager

Quickly Access & Report All System Devices With DevManView [Windows]

Ryan Dube — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:31:09 +0000

If you’ve ever had to deal with troubleshooting hardware on your computer, then you probably have some experience with the Windows Device Manager. It is a simple tool that comes with Windows and lets you browse through all of the devices to check for device properties and conflicts.

However, I’ve always found that the stock Device Manager that comes with the Windows OS is a bit lacking. The one thing I like about it is the fact that it’s easy to navigate, as the main screen has all devices nicely categorized, but that’s the extent of anything good I have to say about it. To find information or properties about the devices, you have to click around through various screens, and there’s no simple or straightforward way to export information outside of the device manager if you want to save information about the system.

This is why a free utility like Device Manager View (DevManView) from NirSoft is useful. It gives you fast access to everything you need to know about all of your devices and it provides both GUI and scripting reporting of device information. When it comes to looking for driver information, you can either use the resources Saikat wrote about previously, or just use this software and instantly search for new drivers on Google.

Quickly View Device Information

There’s no installation required when you download the DevManView system device manager. All you have to do is run the executable. When you do, you’ll see a listing of all of your system device drives, along with more information about them than you probably even knew was available. Be sure to scroll to the right because there are a lot of columns filled with data on each driver.

You have a list of actions you can take for any driver with just a few clicks of the mouse. Right click on any device and you can instantly enable or disable it. Select several devices at once and press F6 or F7 to enable or disable all of them. Here, you can also quickly access the device INF file, view settings in the registry, or even click on “Google Search” to do an instant web search for that particular driver.

Click on “Properties” to see the information that you’d have to dig through the stock Windows Manager for. With DevManview, you’ve got the Manufacturer, flags, service and a host of other information in a single view.

While the main view isn’t quite as organized as the stock Windows Manager, you can filter which devices are displayed under “Options“.

If you’ve enabled the firewall on a remote computer to allow it, you can even access and modify device drivers on a remote system as well. This is a pretty slick way to manage all of the devices on the various computers in your house from a single computer.

Reporting Device Information To File

The main reason that I prefer DevManView over the standard Windows Device Manager is the fact that it’s so much easier to export all device information. The standard Windows Device Manager doesn’t provide any simple way to save your device information, but the DevManView program offers a whole list of formats that you can export all of your device information to, including text, tab or comma delimited or even HTML.

If you only want to save information about a few devices, rather than the entire list, just select a few using CTRL-click and under “View” you can export those select items to an HTML file. The program saves the report to a local HTML file in the DevManView directory and opens up the report in your default browser.

Accessing Device Information Through Scripting

If you prefer scripting over using a GUI, DevManView has you covered. From the command prompt, you can perform a whole list of commands on your devices, or you can use the program to produce device reports from script. For example, you can use the /stext, /scomma or /shtml parameters to choose an export format for your device information.

Additional parameters you can set in command mode are things like /LoadFrom to load device information from remote computers, /ComputerName to specific a network computer name to perform device commands on, or /ShowOnlyConnected to output only those drivers that are currently connected. You can even enable or disable devices from script using the /enable or /disable parameters. You can see all of the command parameters in the readme.txt file that comes with the download.

The nice thing about exporting your entire list of device information to something like a CSV file is that in a text or Excel format you can turn the information into a useful report. You can use this to take an accurate snapshot of your system at any point in time.

Using Windows utilities like DevManView lets you see information about your system devices that you’d otherwise have to dig through the system device manager for. When it comes to managing many computer systems and keeping an inventory of what hardware is installed on those machines, the report generating features of DevManView are a godsend. Give this useful Windows utility a try and let us know what you think.

Have you tried any other free NirSoft utilities? Share your thoughts about DevManView and other NirSoft Windows utilities in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Majoros Attila

Easily Change Computer Settings Instantly With Quick Config

Varun Kashyap — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:30:52 +0000

These days most people have more than one Internet connection. Like I have one for home, another while I am traveling and then add to then, the one I get at my workplace. Now, I happen to use my laptop at home, on the go and at the office as well. Anyone who has been in a similar situation knows, where I am going with this.

The problem is that you have to constantly change your computer network settings to match the place and Internet connection that you are using. Ideally, you would want to be able to switch these settings instantly, perhaps that is why we define different network connections with different settings. Keep in mind that these still need to be enabled and disabled explicitly.

Then there is another situation where you need certain services only for some time, but they startup every time; slowing down the computer. Developers would be able to relate to this. Often one needs to install resource-hogging Database Management System or Servers to write and test code. Ideally, you don’t need them to be running or bothering you when you are using your computer just for browsing the web. Many people even install another copy of the operating system to take care of such situations.

Quick Config can be downloaded as a portable version or an installer package to quickly change computer settings. Fire up Quick Config and you will be greeted by a welcome screen. Click “Create new” under Profile and you will be able to create a new profile. You can specify a name, description, hot key and a custom icon that will be used to represent the profile. Within the profile, you can specify your preferences for a number of items. These are broadly classified into Application, Network, System, Browsers and Desktop. Each one lets you choose your preferences for a different set of settings.

Under Applications you can specify the default browser and email client as well create your own set of startup applications.

Network connections rids you of the problem that I mentioned above. It detects all the network connections that are configured on your computer automatically. You can then specify which one you want to use for the profile and then specify its network settings as well. Not only this, you can also change the domain, computer name, add entries to the hosts file, configure routes, shared folders and network drives all specific to this very profile.

The System entry lets you change computer settings like sound levels, sound themes and default printers but the real strength lies in the ability to specify which services to enable for which profile. This single feature has been a God send for me personally. In addition, you can also change registry values for different profiles. This can come in handy if you want to change environment variables.

The Browsers section detects all the browsers on my computer and lets you change subtle settings like the home page, profile location etc.

Last but not the least, the Desktop section can be used to change computer display settings like the resolution and color depth for different profiles.

Keep in mind that all the plug-ins are disabled by default. Changing the preferences for a plug-in doesn’t automatically enable it and you would have to do that explicitly. So if things don’t look the way they should, double check that you have enabled the desired plug-in

Apart from the dozen or so settings that Quick Config lets you change for your computer, you can also customize Quick Config via the Settings. You can for example, enable or disable plug-ins (I didn’t find any additional plug-ins), change default language, autostart Quick Config with Windows and do other similar thing.

Quick Config is really an awesome application that takes the pain and repetition out of changing settings ever so often. If you can relate to the situations I described in the beginning then you must check out Quick Config. On the flip side, if you have your own clever ways or applications to switch settings easily, we would love to hear about them.

How To Find Unknown Device Drivers By Their Vendor & Device ID

Saikat Basu — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:01:53 +0000

Rule No.1: Never lose your device driver CDs.

Rule No.2: Be prudent and keep a backup copy close by.

Rule No. 3: If you lose your driver files, know where to download it from again.

Congratulations! If you have flouted at least two of the above rules, then this post might serve as deliverance from the three cardinal sins. I am a fellow sinner. But, the third rule has often bailed me out and it’s thanks to a little postscript to the third rule that has washed away my need for penance.

Device Manager is the place where all drivers are displayed. An unknown device gets a yellow question mark against it in Device Manager. The causes could be one or a few – You could have installed the wrong device driver which the OS does not recognize. Or the hardware itself could be faulty. All such cases lead a device driver to be classified as an unknown device.

The easiest way to resolve an unknown status is to find device drivers from the manufacturer’s website and download them. The respective websites usually have drill down menus to take you to the right driver for your OS. But what if you can’t recollect the make or brand of the device? To err is human; to fix it is divine duty. Thankfully, ways exist that makes correcting unknown device status as easy as a prayer.

The Manual Way from the Device Manager

Every device driver comes with two identity numbers ““ the Vendor ID and the Device ID. These two numbers can be used to track down the manufacturer and the specific device driver. The Device ID is the most unique identifier for a device. Hardware ID’s can be less specific. Device ID is what gets accessed first during setup.

Open Device Manager from”¦
- Control Panel ““ System ““ Hardware ““ Device Manager (In Windows XP).
- Control Panel ““ System and Maintenance ““ Administrative Tools – Computer Management – Device Manager (In Windows Vista).
- Alternatively, in the Run box type devmgmt.msc.
Unknown devices would be listed as such and marked out with a yellow question mark.

Select the unknown device and right click to access Properties.
In the Properties window click on Details tab and select Device Instance Id from the drop down.

An alphanumeric string like this PCI\VEN_1217&DEV_7130&SUBSYS_012F1025&REV_01\4&6B16D5B&0&33F0 is the identification marker for the device. We only need to isolate the Vendor ID number (prefixed with VEN) and the Device ID number (prefixed with DEV). In this case, Vendor ID is 1217 and Device ID is 7130.

With the numbers identified, a few resources can be tapped to get the vendors behind these numbers.

PCI Database

It is a reputedly the largest centralized database of PCI device IDs to find your device driver. Using the search box, you can search vendors and devices by IDs. Either one of the searches gives you the clue about the origins of this device. Further information can be obtained from the vendor’s website or a Google search.

The Software Way Using Unknown Devices

A small free standalone software aptly named Unknown Devices offers a quick way to get to the anonymous device drivers. The 630 KB sized software (beta ver.1.4.20) runs directly without an installation. The database used by the software comes in 3 text files located in the same folder.

The program scans the devices installed and displays the name of the manufacturer and the devices discovered.

The detailed info includes the vendor and device IDs along with the manufacturer names.

A Google search is available for any of the details with a right-click. For instance, a Google search using the hardware ID can be used to find device drivers.
The text based database can also be queried for any hardware ID using its integrated Lookup Hardware ID search box.

The beta version (1.4.20) extends support to Vista.

The info obtained using the above two methods, does not guarantee a solution. In some cases, the information will take us into a blind alley because the device driver itself is not available. But the two ways do help to unmask the unidentified devices and make them accessible with a few more details. With the devices identified, we are in a better position to query the manufacture or hunt around on the web for the right device driver.

Let me point you to some resources to find device drivers as a starter”¦

DriverGuide.com

With 400,000 drivers, it is very nearly king of the heap. The free membership comes with a few limitations like access to all 100,000+ member uploaded drivers but limited access to the site’s own 300,000+ uploaded drivers. But free entry into its huge company database list and community forum makes this site a great hub. As it allows user submitted drivers, you can put in a request for an obsolete driver.

NoDevice.com

Nearly 30,000 drivers are indexed by company name and driver type. Read more about it here.

DriversPlanet.com

It offers a downloadable driver scanner. The site is well laid out with a database of 120,000 drivers listed by manufacturer and device type.

Let us know how you deal with an unknown device driver and make it a bit more recognizable.

Image credit: viagallery

How To Easily Manage Photos from Multiple Cameras [Mac]

Jeffry Thurana — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:00:49 +0000

Call me the wannabe pro photographer. My motto is “Shoot everything now, think about them later.” I always thought that among those blurry and often ‘out of the frame’ shots, there should be one or two jewels worth bragging and blogging.

The Mac and the cameras

So I connect my digital camera to my Mac almost all the time; saving those precious moments to the hard drive.

There are two applications that I use to manage my photos: iPhoto (which always opens automatically), and the camera picture transfer software from my camera manufacturer – just for the sake of backup.

But the source of photos is not only my own camera. My wife has a pocket digital camera. My kids are still babies, but soon they too will start taking pictures. And I believe that there are folks who have several cameras for each of their family members. Over time, managing all of the devices and all the pictures taken by them could be mundane tasks.

Luckily, there’s Cameras – a little Mac app to help you manage all of your cameras including your iPhone’s camera.

Shoot, Cameras, Manage!

This camera picture transfer software from Flexibits is less than 1MB in size. So downloading it wouldn’t be a problem. The installation process is also a snap; you just double-click on the “Cameras.prefPane”. Cameras will then reside in your Mac’s System Preferences.

You will have a blank “Cameras” Preferences Pane window. Make sure to check “Enable Cameras” and choose “Ask what to do” in the options of “When you connect new cameras”. These option allow Cameras to always run in the background and ask you what to do if you connect new camera(s).

After doing that little setting, I connect my camera to my Mac and… a pop-up window appears and asks what to do every time that specific camera is connected. The options are: do nothing, open iPhoto, open Image Capture, open other application, and automatically download. Choose one according to your preferences.

The nice thing about Cameras is that you can set different things to do for each different camera. If you want to, you can choose to simply download all images from all of your cameras automatically.

But if you are a professional photographer who wants to edit the shots from your dSLR with Aperture while manage images from other cameras with iPhoto, you can do so. Just set your preference in Cameras and you won’t be bothered again.

With a little help from Image Capture

My personal preferences is to manage all my pictures with iPhoto and keep a copy of each for backup. To achieve this objective, I ask Cameras to open Image Capture.

In Image Capture, I set the option to download the image from my camera to a folder (as the back up) and set it to automatically opens iPhoto after the downloading process has finished.

I also dug a little bit deeper into Image Capture’s options and choose to

delete items from camera after downloading
automatically download all items from camera
set the camera’s date and time

With everything is set, all that’s left for me to do is to continue taking pictures and connect my cameras to my Mac. No more manually opening several apps and downloading the images.

Final Note and Wish List

As the ‘s’ behind the name suggested plural form, Cameras is indeed a useful little app for those who have multiple cameras.

But I need to point out that if you have only one camera, Image Capture could do a better job in automatic camera management.

So, I think Cameras would turn into a much better app if the developer adds the ability to:

do several task for each device, for example: first downloads the pictures, then renames them, then opens iPhoto, and continues with the task of creating copies of the images in folder X.
manage other cellphone’s cameras other than iPhone. Almost everybody has cellphones these days, and almost all cellphones have camera built in. iPhone might be very popular, but not everybody owns it.

Do you enjoy photography? Do you have multiple cameras? Have you tried Cameras? Or do you know better alternative application? Share using the comment below.