Almost every user connects a phone, tablet, reader, flash drives and external HDD... When working with these devices, Windows OS installs their drivers. At the end of the operation, they are not deleted from the computer (that is, they gradually accumulate) and, like temporary files, unnecessary entries in the registry clutter up the system.

In addition to this, if devices are disconnected from USB port incorrectly (pulled out without software shutdown by the "Extract" function), then installed drivers not only remain in the system, but also continue to function. Because of this, they often cause a software conflict in the process of connecting another USB device (the system "does not see" the device, gives errors, hangs).

This article will help you avoid all these troubles: it will tell you how to remove the driver of an unused USB drive or gadget from the operating system completely, how to automatically uninstall all USB drivers.

Removal by standard means

Surface cleaning

1. Open the Start menu.

2. Click right click mouse in the appeared panel "Computer". Select Properties from the command list.

3. In the left column, click "Device Manager".

4. In the dispatcher window, in horizontal menu, open the "View" section and click "Show hidden devices".

5. Open the "USB Controllers" directory.

6. Remove the old or unused driver: right-click on its name → click "Remove".

Deep cleaning

1. Hold down the Win key and press the Pause / Break key. Or open: Start → right-click "Computer" → Properties.

2. In the window that opens, in the left pane, click "Advanced system settings".

3. On the Advanced tab, click the Environment Variables button.

4. In the top block, click Create.

5. In the "New user variable" window:

• in the "Variable name" line enter - devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices;
• in "Variable value" - 1.

6. Click OK in the Variables Panel and in the Environment Variables window.

7. Return to the system properties window (Win + Break) and click "Device Manager".

8. In the manager open: View → Show Hidden ...

9. Click the "Update configuration ..." button (the last one in the panel).

10. Icons of unused drivers in the manager are colored in grey colour(that is, you can uninstall this driver). Open the following directories one by one and remove unnecessary elements (right-click on the name → Delete):

Non-Self-Configuring Device Drivers

Advice! In this directory, you can also remove old drivers, installed by programs that are already uninstalled from Windows (for example, the Comodo firewall package).

This section of devices displays the installed drivers for flash drives, readers, hard drives. Transparent object icons indicate that they are not used (not connected). This means that you can safely get rid of them.

11. After cleaning is complete, restart your PC.

Automatic removal by USBDeview utility

1. Copy to address bar browser this link - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html#DownloadLinks (official site of the utility). And then press "ENTER".

2. On the page that opens:

• if you have a 32-bit system, click the first link “Download USBDeview”;
• if 64-x, the second is "... for x64 systems".

3. Unpack the downloaded archive: right-click on it → select "Extract all ..." → in the "Unpack ..." window, click "Extract".

4. Open the unzipped folder. Run the USBDeview executable file with administrator rights.

5. The utility window displays a list of all drivers installed in the system. Disabled elements are marked with red "chips".

To remove a driver from Windows, select it with a mouse click, and then click the "Trash" icon in the USBDeview panel. Or right click on it and select in context menu Uninstall Selected Devices.

Note. In addition to the uninstall function, USBDeview provides the user with the ability to disable / enable the driver, view its properties.

Removing all USB device drivers

A global driver cleaning can be performed using the DriveCleanup utility (download link - http://uwe-sieber.de/files/drivecleanup.zip).

1. Unpack the archive downloaded to your computer.

2. If you have 32-bit Windows, open the "Win32" folder, if 64-bit, respectively, "x64".

3. Run the "DriveCleanup" file as administrator.

Once launched, the utility will automatically clean up. At the end of the procedure (when the message “Press any key” appears in the console window) press any key.

Success in setting up the system!

Free USBDeview softwareintended for output detailed information about all USB devices ah ( flash card, mobile phone, smartphone, camera, mouse, printer, etc., etc.), ever connected to your computer or laptop, netbook. And it doesn't matter if it is connected to this moment or not.

Good day everyone, or have a nice evening. As you might have guessed, today we will talk about such a wonderful, I repeat, free program USBDeview. In the course of the life of a computer, laptop, we constantly connect, disconnect various USB-devices to it ( smart, mouse, printer, etc ).

It is known (not to everyone) that every device connected to a computer via a USB port will necessarily leave in the system ( all information about connected devices is recorded in) your trace in the form.

USBDeview features:

• device name / description;
• prohibit and permit the operation of devices;
• date and time when the device was added and the time of the last connection;
• disable and change the device letter;
• serial number;
• open the device parameters in the registry editor;
• product and manufacturer identification numbers;
• assign device autostart;
• can uninstall previously used USB devices;
• copy its properties to the clipboard and display information about it in the form of an HTML report;
• disconnect those that are connected to your computer at the moment;
• assign execution of commands when connecting and disconnecting a USB device to a computer port;

You can download the program by this link... The archive contains a 32-bit and 64-bit version of the program in Russian. You must select the desired one and tap on exe file... USBDeview does not require installation (-version). The main window of the program looks like this.

pay attention to top panel where the red, green and blue circles are located, namely on green, this means that the device is currently active.

When you right-click on any device, you can select: disconnect the usb device, delete it, properties, view the contents, etc. Also pay attention to the possibility of control.

Double tap on the selected device will show us the properties of this device.

The program also has such useful function like "Open in Registry Editor" to open this function choose desired device, tap on it with the right mouse button, then select the appropriate item.

After that, a direct transition is made to the registry editor with this driver.

That's basically all on this, I think that the program will be useful to any PC user. With the help of this program, you can prohibit, allow, or delete selected devices, as well as solve many various problems with drivers.

Yours faithfully,

Lists open files and USB-connected devices, browser history, DNS cache - all this helps to find out what the user was doing. We have compiled step by step instructions how to remove traces of your activities in different versions Windows, Office and popular browsers. At the end of the article, you will find several scripts to help you automatically keep your machine clean.

1. Clearing lists of recent places and programs

Let's start by cleaning up the list of recent places and programs. The list of recent (in Windows 10 - frequently used) programs is in the main menu, and the list of recent places is in Explorer.

How to turn off this mess? In Windows 7 - right-click on the "Start" button, select "Properties" and in the window that appears, uncheck both checkboxes in the "Privacy" section.

To clear the list of recent locations and documents, you need to delete the contents of the% appdata% \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Recent directory. To do this, open a command prompt and run two commands:

Cd% appdata% \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Recent echo y | del *. *

It also doesn't hurt to delete the contents of the% appdata% \ microsoft \ windows \ recent \ automaticdestinations \ directory. It stores recent files that appear in the jump list:

Cd% appdata% \ microsoft \ windows \ recent \ automaticdestinations \ echo y | del *. *

To clear recent files automatically on exit, you must enable the "Clear recently opened documents log on exit" policy, which is located under User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Start Menu and Taskbar.

Now let's move on to Windows 10. You can turn off the list of recently added and frequently used applications through the "Options" window. Open it and go to the "Personalization" section, the "Start" item. Disconnect everything that is there.

It seems that the problem has been solved, but alas, this is not entirely true. If you enable these parameters again, then all lists with the same composition will appear again. Therefore, you will have to disable this feature through Group Policy. Open gpedit.msc and go to User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Start Menu and Taskbar. Include the following policies:

• "Clearing the list of recently used programs for new users";
• "Clear the log of recently opened documents on exit";
• "Clear tile notification log on exit";
• Delete the list of programs pinned to the Start menu.

Clearing recent places in Windows 10 is easier than in the "seven". Open Explorer, go to the "View" tab and click the "Options" button. In the window that appears, turn off the options "Show recently used files in the panel quick access"And" Show frequently used folders on the Quick Access Toolbar. " Don't forget to press the "Clear" button.

As you can see, a simple task like clearing the last objects has a rather tricky solution. No editing group policies- nowhere.

2. Clearing the list of USB drives

At some secure facilities, only flash drives registered in the journal are allowed to be connected to the computer. Moreover, as usual, the magazine is the most ordinary one - paper. That is, the computer itself does not restrict the connection of unregistered drives in any way. Does not limit, but records! And if, during the check, they find that the user has connected unregistered drives, he will have problems.

We are by no means advising you to try to steal military secrets, but the ability to clear the list of recently connected drives can be useful in other life situations as well. To do this, look at the following registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Enum \ USBSTOR \ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Enum \ USB \

Here they are - all the drives that you connected to your computer.

It would seem that you just need to take and clean everything. But it was not there! First, the permissions for these registry branches are set in such a way that you will not delete anything even in the "seven", let alone the "ten".

Secondly, it takes a long time to assign rights and permissions manually, especially if there are a lot of drives. Thirdly, admin rights will not help. The screenshot above was created when I was performing the delete operation with admin rights. Fourth, in addition to these two sections, there is a long list of sections to clean up. Moreover, they need not only be deleted, but correctly edited.

If for some reason you need to do everything manually, then look for keywords MountPoints, MountedDevices DeviceClasses, and RemovableMedia. But it's much easier to use a ready-made program that will do everything for you. Some forums recommend USBDeview for this. However, I tested it and I declare that it cleans information from far from all. necessary sections. USBSTOR and USB continue to contain information about the connected media.

I can recommend the program. Run it, check the "Perform real cleaning" checkbox. You can enable the "Save .reg undo file" parameter or not, but if the goal is not to check the program, but to prepare for the upcoming computer inspection, then it is better to turn it off.

The program not only cleans the registry, but also displays a detailed log of its actions (see below). When it finishes working, there will be no mention of connecting drives to your computer.

3. Clearing cache and browser history

The third point in our tudu is clearing the cache and browser log. There are no difficulties here - each browser allows you to reset the list of recently visited sites.

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The system administrator monitors every step of the employees, whose computers are they serving? Not only is access to the Internet limited, but it is also impossible to bring any information on a USB flash drive to a working PC (or to steal some information from the company's network). The situation is close to many office employees, and students are not always bypassed.

Our compatriot Nikolai Raspopov offers one of the ways to solve it as follows: we connect the USB flash drive to the laptop, do everything we need, disconnect the device and clear the traces of its presence in the system. However, the flash drive drivers will remain in the system after such traces are erased.

The application runs on computers running:

• Windows 7;
• Windows 8.1;
• Windows 10.

Get rid of traces of connecting removable drives

The program for removing traces of connecting flash drives is distributed free of charge for both bit sizes operating systems from Microsoft. The archive contains versions for 32 bit and 64 bit Windows. This application is endowed with a graphical interface with one button and a couple of options:

• simulation of deletion from the registry of keys related to removable digital media;
• activation / deactivation of creation backup deleted registry branches (stored in the "Documents" directory).

Thanks to the latter function, USBOblivion will protect the user from possible negative consequences of its own functioning (although in practice these were not noticed).

To erase the traces of USB drives once connected to the computer, you must activate both options and click "Cleanup". It is also possible to simulate the operation of an application that does not require license key... In this mode, the cleaner will collect all the necessary data, find unnecessary keys and display information about the work done, skipping the steps of backing up and deleting junk keys.

Useful information about Oblivion USB

Considering that the program interface must be in Russian (in accordance with the language of the operating system used), sometimes it becomes necessary to switch it, for example, when the localization is incorrectly determined. Across graphical interface you cannot install another language, but there is an argument (parameter) "-lang:" for this. To call the utility with the Russian-language interface, you must run the command "USBOblivion64.exe -lang: 19" in command line(for a 32-bit OS, the command will look like "USBOblivion32.exe -lang: 19"), changing to the directory with the executable file. Installation of English language the interface is executed when the cleaner is started with the "-lang: 09" parameter.