Preinstalling WinXP USB drivers to be able to connect device without interaction

Question

We are a small hardware manufacturer. Most of our products use USB for programming the controllers used. The current situation is that programming the hardware (part of the assembly processor) is rather labour intensive. Each time a new USB device gets plugged in Windows prompts for a driver install. This means that for each new product we have to go through a process of "no, don't go to internet" --> "yes, search automatically" --> "done". We even have to do this twice for each product.

I have been experimenting with the Windows preinstaller (DPInst), but this seems to only facilitate a succesful "yes, search automatically" part. Is there a way to have the drivers installed fully automatically after plugging in the USB device?

Kind Regards,

Ronald

Answer 1

I take it your devices have a unique USB serial number, and hence each one is detected as a new device that hasn't been seen before.

If so, then the solution is this, from http://www.lvr.com/usbfaq.htm:

During device testing, we attach many devices that are identical except for the serial numbers. How can I prevent Windows from asking to install a new driver every time a device is attached?

The method described below causes Windows 2000 and XP to ignore a device's serial number. It's recommended for test environments only.

This registry key controls whether Windows uses or ignores device serial numbers:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\UsbFlags]

It's possible to ignore all serial numbers, though this approach is NOT recommended. To ignore all serial numbers, in the above key, change this value to zero:

GlobalDisableSerNumGen = 1

To ignore the serial number for an individual device, create an entry under the above ...\UsbFlags key. The name must start with "IgnoreHWSerNum" followed by the vendor and product ID of the device. A value of 1 = "disable the serial number."

Example (Vendor ID = 0925h, Product ID = 016Ah):

IgnoreHWSerNum0925016A= 1

An alternative hardware/firmware solution is to disable the device USB serial number during production (e.g. with a link, possibly one made by a test fixture). Without a USB serial number, Windows will assign a pseudo serial-number to the device, based on its position in the connection tree. That wouldn't be likely to change during a production run, so all devices would then be treated as identical and Windows wouldn't bother with the new driver stuff.

Answer 2

I had the same problem 5 years ago.

The main problem is that the installation of USB drivers after Plug&Play of the coresponding device works under the LocalSystem account. To have no security problems Microsoft allows silent installation of drivers only signed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows Server 2003 there are documented way (see http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/install/authenticode.mspx).

If you have a managed corporate environment (you can prepare computers which will use your Plug&Play devices), then there are a workaround which solves the problem on Windows XP. I suggested it 5 years ago for one of my customer. It works perfect since about 5 years in environment with some of 10000 Windows XP computers.

The idea for the solution is very easy: your drivers (for example the CAT file) must be signed with the signature which

• has both 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.3 ("Code Signing") and 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.10.3.6 ("Windows System Component Verification") OIDs as Enhanced key usage (EKU) extension
• the certificate or it's parent certificate must be installed in the Machine's Root (Trusted Root Certification) or AuthRoot (Third-Party Root Certification Authorities) certificate store

If you do this on a Windows XP computer, the operating system will interpret your driver like Microsoft signed driver.

Morver you shoud insert in the registry the path to the source of the driver.