Windows 7 How to install a driver for an unknown/unlocated but existing device? Generic procedure?

[pstein]

I have bought a new notebook and re-installed Win7 with multiple specialized drivers.

Most of these drivers have an own setup.exe and were installed successfully.

There are however two drivers remaining which do NOT have such a setup.exe.
When I right click on the contained *.inf file and click "install" then
Win7 tells me:

"The INF file you selected does not support this method of installation"

Ok, when I go now to the device manager in COntrol Panel I found at least in section
"Other devices" two device marked with a yellow triangle:

- Base System device
and
- Unknown device

Hmm this is not very expressive.

How do I know which driver is for which device?
Currently uninstalled are a Memory Stick driver and soemthing like a Firmware extension driver.

The core question is: Is there a general driver installation method where I don't have to care
to which device the driver is assigned? In other words: I want to tell Win7: install this
driver and find out internally to which device it should be assigned?

Assume I assign manually a driver to the wrong device:
Is this working at all or does Win7 auto-reject such a wrong assignment?

Does Win7 recognize and tell me at least that the assignment does not match?

Can I damage hardware with that?

Peter

 

[cybercore]

Welcome to the forums, Peter. : )

How do I know which driver is for which device?
Currently uninstalled are a Memory Stick driver and soemthing like a Firmware extension driver.

The core question is: Is there a general driver installation method where I don't have to care
to which device the driver is assigned? In other words: I want to tell Win7: install this
driver and find out internally to which device it should be assigned?

Assume I assign manually a driver to the wrong device:
Is this working at all or does Win7 auto-reject such a wrong assignment?

1. Extract those drivers to different folders
2. Right click the yellow devices in the task manager, install/update driver -> browse to the folders with the drivers extracted
3. It'll install the driver only if the driver matches the device, if NOT the wrong driver won't damage it. Don't worry, it'll just say like "Driver not found" : )