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General discussion

Driver me crazy!

Nov 16, 2003 10:45PM PST

I recently acquired a Viewsonic wireless mouse & keyboard set and decided to install it. I installed the drivers and everything was fine. I noticed the old mouse driver & software (Kensington) was still installed so I got the bright idea that I'd uninstall it. Uh oh! Removing the driver caused the wireless set to stop functioning. Oops. Well, maybe if I reboot the system.. Rebooted, get to Win2k login and the keyboard is not working. No big deal, I'll just swap in the old keyboard and.. still not working. Argh, I musta fried the port somehow, no, wait a minute, I can get into the BIOS setup and use the old keyboard fine.

So the question is: How do I reinstall windows drivers if I can not log into windows?

Anyone know of some generic DOS drivers that would work to get me logged in and then I can change?

Thanks,

Some Dumb Guy

Discussion is locked

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Re:Driver me crazy!
Nov 16, 2003 10:50PM PST

Logitech has the same issue.

Lesson?

NEVER install mouse or keyboard drivers if the unit works without.

Fix?

You'll have to contact Viewsonic on how to revert to the stock keyboard drivers. Logitech has been playing cat and mouse on the subject and I can't find their web-page about fixing this issue. From rumor, it's a political problem in that they don't want to document their gaffe.

Bob

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Re:Re:Driver me crazy!
Nov 16, 2003 11:20PM PST

Actually, the wireless didnt work before I installed the drivers. Uninstalling the old Kensington drivers must have uninstalled whatever drivers I needed to have the old keyboard work.

Viewsonic tech guy said:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding your keyboard. You could try to reload the old keyboard drivers first, usually when you purchase your computer they give you a bunch of drivers which one is a keyboard driver. Reload that first and see if your old keyboard is fully functional. After you may go to our website at www.viewsonic.com, support, drivers and utilities, all other plug and play drivers, then find you keyboard driver and install that then plug in ours to see if it works. Also to confirm that our product works, go to another PC and plug it in there, it should auto detect and immediately work. If you have further questions please feel free to contact us at 800-888-8583, thank you for keeping ViewSonic on top.

How can I reinstall drivers if I can't login is the question I sent back.

I am pretty sure I logged in safe mode and had the same problem. I'll do that tonight just to make sure.

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Exactly.
Nov 16, 2003 11:35PM PST

The Logitech issue was very similar. Installing their driver stopped all mice and keyboards from working.

Repair involved a boot to the Recovery Console. In many cases, people can't handle this since:

a. They don't know the administrator password.
b. They have some OEM CD which doesn't have the console.
c. It's pushing their skill level.

As you can tell, they want you to confirm their product works by trying it elsewhere. Someone did just that with the Logitech and then had two machines to fix.

I will not accept keyboard and mice that need such drivers. I ask for a full refund with my statement that the product is not fit for the market.

Bob

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Re:Exactly.
Dec 8, 2003 9:14PM PST

The best is I've been talking to both Logitech and Kensington tech support. I tell them the problem, they say "well, go to the start menu and then.." HELLO! I can't login at all, if you read my message, you'd see that. "well, boot into SAFE MODE.." Uh, didn't I just explain that I can not login?

I guess I'll flip it up on MS' website somewhere and see if I get any hits.

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Here's the procedure I was hunting for.
Dec 8, 2003 10:38PM PST