USB Dead After Vista Update

Have you recently performed an update on your machine that includes a patch from Microsoft (KB938371) that has suddenly disabled your USB ports, possibly your bluetooth, and making virtually any of your devices to stop interacting with your computer?

This happened to me and I wanted to do what we do best, get all the information together and provide a solution. I truly read through about 15 to 20 blogs where there were no less than 20 entries to try and find a solution. Some people supplied solutions. I tried almost all of them, but didn’t fix it, at least not my problem.


I’ve spent the night figuring out a solution to this issue. This problem has had a ton of people up in arms. There’s nothing but flaming comments for Microsoft not having a solid solution; myself included. What a sour experience. And I’m usually in a favorable mood with MS.

All because of a patch that’s gone “bonkers”. Patch article number KB938371 is the purported problem. The update is a pre-requisite hotfix, which by the way, cannot be removed once it’s installed. Even after I performed Windows updates and having restored back to the original point through the Restore Points I still had the problem.

In a few words, it has to do with the drivers, plain and simple!

There are many ways to resolve this issue, but I soved the problem through a third-party application. I purchased the DriverCure software by ParetoLogic. It immediately found low-level drivers (for the HID and USB and Bluetooth components) that were out of date including a few others; it downloaded and installed them. After rebooting the machine, my USB ports worked and the devices were active!

Now this was the easy way, but it cost me $49.00. Although I’m positive the solution can be done without cost. It might be an arduous task to go through. You’ll have to sift through all the HID devices in the Device Manager, identifying all the manufacturers, find their websites, finding the installation packages, making sure they are the latest drivers, installing them, and hoping all that was right. =)

There are other techniques too; sometimes they are more complex and not so straight forward. At SnapJag.com we want to put together solutions that are “Geek Speek to Plain Talk”(TM) threads.

I’m no noobie but I like giving support to people offering a solid, simple solution even if it might cost a few dollars without much headache. If you’re up for trying on your own, then follow the instructions at this link.

Another article vaguely refers to this issue here.

Summary

I’m very confident of this solution because I bought the laptop brand new from Costco on Saturday, and I immediately started working on the computer. And everything worked. I performed the updates and started having the problems. I restored back to the original Restore Point but the problems still existed.

My new computer make and model is a HP Pavilion dv7-1273cl Entertainment PC with the following specifications:

  • 500 GB (5400 RPM)
  • 4 GB Ram
  • Duo Core Intel Centrino
  • 17″ HD display
  • Blu-Ray DVD+-/CD+-RW
  • Bluetooth and Wireless LAN
  • Windows Vista Home Premium

Problem

I haven’t had my USB devices since my computer drivers update. I could certainly use the touchpad on the laptop, but I am a programmer and DBA and need to work fast. So using an external mouse (either corded or bluetooth) is essential but totally useless.

HP has nice registration and setup screens that I went through in about 10 minutes. I decided to turn off the pre-instaled Norton Security and install my favorite BitDefender. I did that. Then, my curiosity got the better of me, and this is when all heck broke lose … I bought two Blu-ray discs at Costco (since this is my first Blu-ray player) and would watch them while I setup them machine. The DVD player came up and said that the firmware, software, or some-rather-annoying message appeared. I decided the next step was to update the system. So, I did a Windows update and sought a repair of the DVD problem. About 20 updates were available, and I ran throught those.

Let me say at this point that as of right now, 12 hours later, I haven’t revisted the issue about the Blu-ray. But can’t fix it still. Will work on and provide a solution if others are having the same problem. =(

After restarting the machine and finishing the updates my external Microsoft miniature mouse wouldn’t work. I thought that was odd. Now and again I would turn off the wireless so I didn’t have any compromises while installing virus protection and had seen initialially that the Wireless and Bluetooth statement would appear in the bubble that would appear because of toggling them off and on. But now I didn’t see those either. It’s as if the Bluetooth and the USB interfaces and shut off. Which in actuality, they had done.

Solution

I used DriverCure from ParetoSoft and it found the underlying drivers that according to Microsoft were up todate, but because Microsoft keeps a different versioning system than the vendors, it appears to be bassackwards.

I understand it costs money to use ParetoSoft to find and correct the problem. But it was the best $40 I’ve spent because I could move on and get work done without having to individually investigate, find, and install each of the 25 driver inconsistencies.

2 thoughts on “USB Dead After Vista Update

  1. garfield says:

    $40! It might be an ok product, but there are at least 2 excellent driver updaters (RadarSync and DriverMax) that are totally free.

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