How-to: Find “lost” Windows Vista Drivers when adding a new device May 9, 2007
Posted by Liz in : How-to, Microsoft , trackback,
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This is caused by a corrupted INFCACHE.1 file. This file is hidden, has restricted access, and can be found in “c:\windows\inf”. This file stores the location of drivers and their INF files.
Delete this file and it will force Windows to rebuild the INFCACHE.1 file the next time Windows searches for drivers.
To delete this file, you have to set the security permissions of it to allow Full Control for the User Group Administrators or full control for your account. Here’s the complete how-to:
1. Open a Windows Explorer window (right click Start> Explore)
2. In the address bar, type c:\windows\inf and press Enter
3. Right click on the file INFCACHE.1
4. Select Properties
5. Click on the “Security” tab
6. Click “Edit” to edit permissions
7. Click “Add” to add User Groups
8. Type “Administrators” in the User Groups field and click ok
9. Set Administrators to “Full Control” and click ok
10. Move or delete the file “INFCACHE.1″
11. Reinstall a device to force Windows to rebuild the “INFCACHE.1″ file (not the one you were having problems with)
And try again. This can happen several times in a row, but repeat the steps needed to delete the file and try again. Eventually it will work, trust me.
I wonder if Gates says that to his family members, “Eventually it will work, trust me.”
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Comments»
tried it and it worked great. Well done.
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GREAT - THANK YOU
This one worked indeed. Thanks for sharing this. Of course, no Microsoft knowledge base article can be found regarding this (or they must have used, once again, some obscure language).
“Hitting your kids with our products may, in some cases, cause slight head-aches. Please call tech. support for help on this subject. Your call may be charged. Note that the call might be recorded for educational and quality-improving reasons”
Sound familiar?
Thank you after months of trying to fix this it works! Why its getting corrupt is another thing…
This really works. I was having problems adding new devices on USB for 4 months and finally found a solution. I deleted infcache.1 and restarted the system. now every thing works perfect. You might have to repeat this in few days.
IT REALLY DOES WORK YOU KNOW. AFTER WEEKS OF TRYING TO INSTALL MY PLUG AND PLAY DEVICES, I FINALLY CAME TO THIS.
THANKS
I have been pulling my hair out for the last 5 days trying to find a fix for The Western Digital Passport USB External Hard Drive and Transcend Jetflash V10.
Western Digital were very good with their 1-800 Tech Support, but could not come up with a fix that worked and suggested that I contact Microsoft as it was a Vista problem.
I contacted Microsoft and while waiting for them to get back to me with a fix I continued searching and finally found here the suggested fix the worked great the first try.
Thank You very much for posting the fix.
Thank you…..thank u so much. i was going crazy trying to get pen drives to work on my laptop, cursed vista (that did not work of course)….your solution solved the problem on the first try. Bless you.
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I tried this about a dozen times and I still couldn’t get Vista Ultimate to recognize my WD Passport… any ideas?
Excellent job. I could not get my usb devices working in Vista until I did this. Thanks for the post!!!
fuck men this works at 100% thanks from tijuana dude, vista sucks on reading drivers on devices, but with this it can
i can not find the fix to my viao pcg-k315 mass storage drivers
Amazing! I just spent 3 days trying to fix this problem… your fix worked in 30 seconds! Ironically MS KB article 940199 specifically says NOT to delete this file because Vista will NOT recreate it. Of course THEIR fix didn’t work at all and YOURS did.
Where is the tip jar I want to pay you for this information!
hi all, does this method work with the SD Storage Cards? i have Ricoh card reader and its installed properly, but cannot read any memory card, windows keep trying to search for the driver!
thanx
did you mean uninstall and re-install the software for the printer?
I have two downloaded files one is a update patch and another a driver should I delete them as well before I do this.
Seems like I tried the uninstall thing already but that was a week ago - much has gone down since then.
Dell tech tried to repair the Infcache.1 but said he couldn’t get it done
My problem is w/Dell AIO 926 printer. the printer driver installs but not the scan driver.
Anybody!
its not working for usb mouse ;(
HI
I tried your advise and it didnt work with my mouse, do you have any other idea please? recently i installed vista update KB938371 and that’s where all the trouble started.
Please advise, i use my pc for work and can’t afford a one day break:(
pzientek (at) email.cz
Do A system restore back just before the update ,this should work.
Well i did exactly as you suggested. (i had gotten this error with all PNY usb data sticks, and several other USB flash drives.) I am mostly trying to fix the “BUFFALO Inc. USB-SATA Bridge” error too. I did what you said. plugged in a 1GB USB flash stick and….same shit. the exact same error. nothing different.