Removing Drivers from Wizard Hardware Lists

Last reviewed: May 31, 1996
Article ID: Q137377

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 95

SYMPTOMS

After you install one or more Windows 3.1 device drivers in Windows 95, the devices associated with those Windows 3.1 drivers may appear in the Windows 95 hardware lists. These hardware lists appear in the Add New Hardware Wizard that is started by double-clicking the Add New Hardware icon in Control Panel, and in other wizards such as the Add Printer and Install New Modem Wizards.

If Windows 95 includes a driver for the same device for which you installed a Windows 3.1 driver, it may be difficult to distinguish between the Windows 3.1 driver and the Windows 95 driver in the hardware lists.

CAUSE

When you install a Windows 3.1 device driver in Windows 95, an Oem<n>.inf file is created, where <n> is an incremental number starting at 0. The presence of an Oem<n>.inf file causes the device to appear in the hardware lists.

Because Windows 3.1 setup information (.inf) files do not conform to the Windows 95 setup information file format, Windows 95 may be unable to clearly identify the drivers associated with one of these files.

RESOLUTION

To remove all Windows 3.1 drivers from the hardware lists, rename all the Oem<n>.inf files in the Windows\Inf folder. Doing so does not affect the Windows 3.1 drivers that you currently have installed, but does prevent you from reinstalling the drivers without the original Oemsetup.inf files included with each driver.

To rename the Oem<n>.inf files in the Windows\Inf folder, type the following commands at a command prompt, pressing ENTER after each command:

   cd \windows\inf
   ren oem?.inf oem?.xxx

If there are more than 10 Oem<n>.inf files, you must also type the following command:

   ren oem??.inf oem??.xxx

NOTE: Do not use the oem*.inf wildcard designation in place of Oem?.inf and Oem??.inf. Doing so may cause the wrong files to be renamed.

If there are no Oem<n>.inf files in the Windows\Inf folder, you can force Windows 95 to rebuild the entire driver information database by renaming the Drvdata.bin and Drvidx.bin files in the Windows\Inf folder. To do so, type the following commands at a command prompt, pressing ENTER after each command:

   cd \windows\inf
   ren drvdata.bin drvdata.xxx
   ren drvidx.bin drvidx.xxx

After you rename these files, the driver information database will be rebuilt the next time the hardware lists are displayed.

MORE INFORMATION

Windows 95 setup information files can contain a key that identifies the manufacturer of the associated driver, and that distinguishes that driver from drivers included with Windows 95. This lets you install third-party Windows 95 drivers without creating confusion when you view the hardware lists.

For example, if you have a third-party Windows 95 driver for the Hewlett- Packard LaserJet 4M printer installed, you see two lines similar to the following lines when you view the hardware list in the Add New Hardware or Add Printer Wizard:

   HP LaserJet 4 (Microsoft)
   HP LaserJet 4 (Hewlett-Packard)

KBCategory: kbhw kb3rdparty
KBSubcategory: win95
Additional reference words: 95

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Last reviewed: May 31, 1996
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