Deleting ENUM entries in the Registry

[videobruce]

Device drivers that are uninstalled still leave entries in the registry under ENUM which I believe are Device Manager entries that can't be deleted. If I have a problem with a driver I like to completely uninstall it and start from scratch, but I can't since these entries are permanently entered into the registry with no apparent way to remove them. I have encountered times where that causes problems since the driver is really already there and no conformation boxes appear when you go to reinstalled them they way they did when they wereinstalled the first time. Especially with video devices where it is more critical.

Without reinstalling a previous image file (if there is one), how can these entries be deleted? I use Registry Crawler to find these left over entries of which there usually are many. This is running 2k w/sp3 and logged in as a administrator.

[mjc]

In 9x, as a method of last resort, manually deleting the Enum keys (either for a specific device or enmasse) has been known to work for severe driver problems. I would imagine that it can be done in 2k, but make sure you have a complete registry backup and export the the keys you will be deleting first, before removing them (thereby making min-backups of the selected keys).

[videobruce]

That's too drastic. I don't want to remove everything, just the offending entries.

It was suggested to use Reg Edit 32 or Device Manager and check 'show hidden devices' and use it in safe mode. I don't know which would be better.

[mjc]

Use Device manager first, as it is the "safest" way.

Then if you still can get rid of it, manually removing the offending key (but follow the backup procedure above), is what you will have to do.

I was just saying that yes, it can be done and in extreme cases blowing out the whole section and letting Windows reinstall all devices may be of help. (Sure beats a complete reinstall...;) )

[BigBlue66]

Yeah, I just upgraded my kid's system from a KT133 chipset board to a KT133A chipset board the other night. He's running 98SE and was very worried that I would have to format and reinstall, thus losing all of his saved games that he had worked so hard on. hehe

So, immediately before powering down to swap out the boards, I ran Regedit and deleted the whole Enum folder.

When I booted up with the new board installed, all I had to do is run Add New Hardware to reinstall all the device manager items including system board resources.

Not saying that will work in this particular thread's subject, but thought I would post it for others out there worrying that they may lose their data when swapping out boards whilst running a 9X flavor of Windoz. I haven't tried this with 2KPro or XP so can't comment on the success of doing so.