Using Device Manager Error Codes

Device Manager error codes are the codes that accompany icons displayed with exclamation points (also known as bangs) in the Device Manager console (Devmgmt.msc). To view these error codes, open the properties of the problem device in Device Manager and look under Device Status on the General tab. You can view the hardware ID of the problem device by selecting Hardware Ids from the Property list box on the Details tab. When you parse SetupAPI logs, this ID can be useful for gaining further understanding of why the device did not install or is not working properly.

Windows 7 reports the same Device Manager error codes as previous versions of Windows. Knowledge Base article 245386, found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245386, documents these codes, explaining the meaning of each and the kinds of scenarios that can cause them to be reported.

Note During a device installation, if a user is prompted to install the device in the future and responds by choosing No, a driver must still be installed. Otherwise, the PnP service will continue to redetect the driver and prompt for installation. In this scenario, the Null driver (which actually means that the device is configured not to use a driver) is installed and Device Manager displays error code 28. If the user later wants to install the device, the user must select the Update Driver option in Device Manager because the device previously was assigned an error code because it could not be installed with any driver.

Device Manager error codes are reported only during device installation; they are never reported during driver staging. This means that if a Device Manager error code is reported, the problem occurred during device installation and not driver staging. A good place to start troubleshooting is looking at how physical installation of the device occurred and whether it was done properly. Device Manager error codes are also reported in the SetupAPI.dev.log file. See the section titled "Using the SetupAPI Log File" earlier in this tutorial for more information.