How to clean up USB drivers in Windows 7

rabb5it

I previously plugged USB devices randomly in any port including a hub, not realising that a new connection/driver was created each time I used a different port. I now label and use the same port for a particular device. I now have 42 USB connections listed in Device Manager and my Inspiron laptop is slow to start and shut down even with a SSD. I believe it is reading through the list of USB drivers on startup and this only happened recently when I plugged a dongle in different ports and many drivers were created. Many drivers are repeated such as 'USB Root Hub'. Is there a utility such as CCleaner that will safely remove the unused USB drivers or does this have to be done one at a time manually. I am apprehensive of deleting one in error. Any advice gratefully received, thank you.

bsod

just delete them in device manager, they should recreate, many things cause slow startups, the cure is a reinstall.

JJ_Egan

I find USBDEVIEW very useful for USB problems .

aerostar

Have used this to clean up XP, works fine - does not remove the drivers, but when you plug in a USB key it will install it as if it had never been connected, eg "found new hardware" and then search for the drivers on your PC which will be there as only the registry info has been removed.

https://code.google.com/p/usboblivion/


USBOblivion utility designed to erase all traces of USB-connected drives and CD-ROMs from the registry in Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 32/64-bit versions. The utility has a test mode of operation, i.e. without actually removing data from the registry, and, just in case, creates a .reg-file to undo any changes. There is also a fully automatic mode.

rabb5it

Thank you for those two USB Utilities, I will try with them when I get time.