Question Completely messed up my keyboard and mouse drivers - is there a way to avoid a clean installation?

Eran Machlev

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Jan 14, 2014
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Hey! I accidentally got myself into a rather frustrating situation where my computer doesn't work with any mouse or keyboard and now I don't know what to do.

I have a Windows 10 setup with a Razer keyboard and a generic Microsoft mouse. A few months ago my mouse stopped working, and when I checked the Device Manager it showed my mouse as a "USB Receiver" with a keyboard icon. I have no idea what caused this, and it's a single receiver for a mouse, not a dual mouse-keyboard setup. The same happened with any other mouse I tried it with.

My Razer keyboard worked though, so I assumed it's a driver problem. I tried uninstalling everything and reconnecting the mouse but it was still recognized as a keyboard. I tried a few more things that didn't work, and at some point I tried messing with the registry to try to somehow change how Windows recognizes my specific device. After changing a few values I restarted my PC only to find out that now my keyboard stopped working as well :/
Just like my mouse, trying other keyboards also didn't work.

Booting to Recovery Mode did work though, and there everything worked fine.

As it looks right now, the only way out of this situation is to reinstall Windows, which I don't want because there are too many things that I have no time to reinstall.

I am looking for a way to avoid this - I really want to believe that there is a way to completely remove all my peripheral device drivers from the recovery command line and let Windows install them after booting, but sadly Google wasn't very helpful. Please help me avoid formatting my computer :(

Thanks in advance!
 
Are both mouse and KB wired and connected by USB?

Did you uninstall drivers through the "uninstall device" choice on the drivers tab of properties in Device Manager....one at a time followed by a reboot?

I have a very ordinary Windows 10 system with wired mouse and keyboard. Both are shown as HID devices in the proper section of Device Manager.

Do you have any System Restore points?
 

Eran Machlev

Distinguished
Jan 14, 2014
24
0
18,510
Are both mouse and KB wired and connected by USB?

Did you uninstall drivers through the "uninstall device" choice on the drivers tab of properties in Device Manager....one at a time followed by a reboot?

I have a very ordinary Windows 10 system with wired mouse and keyboard. Both are shown as HID devices in the proper section of Device Manager.

Do you have any System Restore points?

Thank you for replying! Keyboard is wired, mouse is wireless. I also tried a wireless keyboard that didn't work. I haven't tried a wired mouse because I don't have any but I doubt it'll work.

My mouse was shown as a keyboard in the Devices and Printers window, and I uninstalled every HID device in Device Manager. After rebooting I connected the mouse and it started setting it up, only for it to reappear as a keyboard :(

No system restore points sadly. Good idea though :)