devcon disable cannot disable device not found

Question

I'm on Windows 8.1 trying to disable my clickpad programatically. I've installed the correct x64 bit version of devcon as noted here. I can find the correct device but devcon disable with the same parameters fails.

PS C:\...\7600.16385.win7_wdk.100208-1538\tools\devcon\amd64> .\devcon.exe disable 'ACPI\SYN1ECA*'
ACPI\SYN1ECA\4&22077A96&0                                   : Disable failed
No matching devices found.

Which is rather confusing. It obviously finds the right device, but then reports "No matching devices found". What the heck?

Please note that I am aware of this similar question but, in addition to not having an accepted answer, that question has a different error and is likely using the wrong version of devcon.

Answer 1

You are using the wrong "spelling" in your command.

This should work:

devcon.exe disable "ACPI\SYN1ECA*"

If you already found the exact device you want to disable you can do it like this:

devcon.exe disable "@<instace ID>"

In your case:

devcon.exe disable "@ACPI\SYN1ECA\4&22077A96&0"

If this also doesn't work you should use the remove command. remove works almost always, but the device will be back after you restart the system.

devcon.exe remove "@<instance ID>"