Disable USB Device or disable plug and play

Dear all,

We are currently facing the problem that we need to install a new
printer driver on a lot of machines that are only accessible with a
remote connection.

In order to install a new driver we have to uninstall the old driver,
unplug the USB printer, install the new printer driver and afterwards
connect the physical printer again.

Because we cannot do that on side we're looking for a way to "simulate"
the unplugging of the printer.

We thought about the possibility to somehow disable plug and play and
after uninstalling the old driver the system should not recognize the
device anymore.

Or somehow disable the USB port in windows and enable it afterwards again.

Can anyone give us a solution or a hint how we can accomplish this?

best regards
Stefan

It shouldn't be necessary to unplug the printer to install a new driver.
Perhaps there's a way to avoid having to unplug the printer? Can you explain
why it seems that you need to unplug the printer for this to work? Can you
not just install the new driver without uninstalling the old one?

-Mike

"Stefan" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Dear all,
>
> We are currently facing the problem that we need to install a new printer
> driver on a lot of machines that are only accessible with a remote
> connection.
>
> In order to install a new driver we have to uninstall the old driver,
> unplug the USB printer, install the new printer driver and afterwards
> connect the physical printer again.
>
> Because we cannot do that on side we're looking for a way to "simulate"
> the unplugging of the printer.
>
> We thought about the possibility to somehow disable plug and play and
> after uninstalling the old driver the system should not recognize the
> device anymore.
>
> Or somehow disable the USB port in windows and enable it afterwards again.
>
> Can anyone give us a solution or a hint how we can accomplish this?
>
> best regards
> Stefan

Stefan <> wrote:
>
>We are currently facing the problem that we need to install a new
>printer driver on a lot of machines that are only accessible with a
>remote connection.
>...
>We thought about the possibility to somehow disable plug and play and
>after uninstalling the old driver the system should not recognize the
>device anymore.
>
>Or somehow disable the USB port in windows and enable it afterwards again.

THAT is easy. Anything you can do in Device Manager can be done with the
"devcon" utility from the WDK:
devcon disable "USB\VID_xxxx&PID_xxxx*"
Then, later:
devcon emable "USB\VID_xxxx&PID_xxxx*"
--
Tim Roberts,
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.