I’m not sure that this is much of an AnywhereUSB/5 issue but I’m checking to see if anyone else has experienced this issue.
We have 13 AnywhereUSB/5 devices connecting from different distribution centers to the Host PC (VMWare VM running Windows Server 2K3 SP2). Unlike Windows XP, Windows 2K3 detected the AnywhereUSB/5 hub and installed all 3-5 necessary drivers automatically as the usbd.sys file was in the drivers folder (which is awesome!).
All 13 hubs are updated to v2.30.0005, are discovered, and connected to the Host PC.
The devices that get plugged in are eBook handheld devices that connect to the network using the usb cable.
Problem: Each device we plug into a hub requires a new driver install. On Windows XP, the driver pops-up in a plug-n-play balloon and the driver install wizard comes up. In Windows 2K3, the Host PC recognizes the device but it doesn’t pop-up anything and fails on the auto install. The only way I can tell it was plugged in is by checking Device Manager (it has a yellow exclamation mark next to the device). When I update the driver, it auto points to the correct digitally signed driver, installs, then it works.
How come it doesn’t do this automatically and fails every time? Everything would be perfect if this worked. There are over 100+ of these devices and until all of them get installed, someone is having to manually correct these during third shift.
Shouldn’t this install once and then plug-n-play install every time after that since it is the same type of device?
The behavior you’re seeing is due to the nature of USB devices with regards to Windows. If you connect a USB device into a “new” USB port (a “real” USB port, or an AnywhereUSB) that it’s never been connected to before, and that device requires a driver, Windows may either prompt you for the location of that driver through a found new hardware wizard, or you may need to update it manually through Device Manager. As a workaround, you may want to experiment with an “Unattended Installation”. The instructions below are actually for our Digi Edgeport USB-to-serial converters, but if you follow the logic, you can change the path of the driver from “C:\Edgeport Drivers” to the location where the driver for your eBook handheld devices.
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If you do not want to be presented with the “Found New Hardware Wizard”
prompting you to specify the location of the Edgeport drivers during the
installation of an Edgeport, then you can perform an Unattended Installation.
These procedures are only necessary for first time installations where
you do not want to go through the “Found New Hardware Wizard”. If you have
installed Edgeports on your system before, then these steps are unnecessary.
The following steps are for setting up an Unattended Installation.
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Using REGEDIT.EXE or any other registry editor, append the directory
that you have extracted this installation package to, to the DevicePath
registry variable. The DevicePath registry variable is a REG_EXPAND_SZ
variable that specifies the default directories that Windows will search
during hardware installations. The directory that you are appending
needs to be the same directory where this installation package was
extracted to. Use a semicolon ‘;’ as a separator in between directories,
no spaces are required in between semi-colons and the added directories.
For example if you extracted the install package to “C:\Edgeport Drivers”
then the DevicePath registry variable would look like this:
Name: Type: Data:
DevicePath REG_EXPAND_SZ %SystemRoot%\inf;“C:\Edgeport Drivers”
The DevicePath variable is found in the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
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Connect the new Edgeport to be installed, and it will install itself and
enumerate its COM ports without prompting the user for input.
I really appreciate the reply. I’m testing this on the server now and will let you know the outcome.
I wanted to follow up on this in-case other users run into this issue (or use similar eBook handheld devices). I added the path to the eBooks driver folder to the registry key listed above with no results.
Instead, I copied the folder that contained the drivers and pasted it into the %systemroot%\inf folder (c:\windows\inf). I then rebooted the VM. When it came back up, a new ebook was plugged in. The pop-up balloon showed a new device was plugged in. It automatically found the eBook driver and installed it correctly.
We haven’t received a lot of feedback yet (as we have over 900 devices with around 160 active), but this is at least a good sign.
Thanks again for your help!