Section 6: Hidden and Disabled Devices

The Big Picture: The Guest List vs. Who Is in the Room

Think of a hotel register. It lists guests currently staying and also guests who stayed before but checked out. Some guests are in their room but asleep (not available). The default Device Manager view is like the "who is in the building right now" screen. It leaves out many entries to keep things tidy.

This section shows how to see the rest, and how three different ideas (hidden, disabled, ghost) differ.

6.1 Show Hidden Devices Option

What it is: In Device Manager, the View menu has Show hidden devices. Tick it and extra nodes appear.

What counts as "hidden"? Two kinds:

These appear in a group called Non-Plug and Play Drivers (or similar). On Windows 10 and 11 the group name and the list can look a little different from older versions.

Why show them? Troubleshooting. A driver of this kind can slow the PC or conflict with a program, and normally you would never see it. Be careful: look, but do not disable or uninstall unless you know exactly what the entry does. Many of them are needed to boot.

How to use it:

Device Manager menu:  View  →  Show hidden devices  (tick)

Untick it to go back to the normal view.

6.2 Ghost Devices (Previously Connected, Not Present)

What it is: A ghost device is a device that Windows remembers but that is not connected now. Every time you connect a new USB stick, camera or printer, Windows creates a node and saves settings for it, so the next time you plug in the same device it is ready right away. When you unplug it, the node does not vanish. It becomes non-present, a "ghost", with its driver settings stored.

Why does this matter?

Ghost devices are normal. A PC that has been used for years will have many.

How to see them. The simple Show hidden devices option does not always show non-present devices. To see them, set an environment variable (a named setting that lives for the life of one window) and start Device Manager from that same window.

Open a Command Prompt (press Win, type cmd, press Enter) and type these two lines:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
devmgmt.msc

Then in Device Manager choose View → Show hidden devices. Now devices that are not present also appear. They are drawn in a lighter (greyed) colour than working ones.

This is how you see non-present devices. Two points matter:

• The setting works only for the Device Manager window you opened from that same Command Prompt. Close that window and everything returns to normal. It does not change anything on your PC for good.
• A Device Manager opened from the Start menu (without the setting) will not show them.

Mock-up:

Universal Serial Bus controllers
  ├─ Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller
  ├─ USB Composite Device
  ├─ USB Mass Storage Device            <- working (normal colour)
  └─ USB Mass Storage Device            <- greyed: an old USB stick
                                            that is not plugged in

Looking from the command line. You can also see non-present devices without opening Device Manager:

pnputil /enum-devices

Without the /connected option, it lists devices that are not currently connected too, and shows each device's status. In PowerShell:

Get-PnpDevice | Where-Object { $_.Present -eq $false } | Select-Object Class, FriendlyName

(Present is a property that is False for ghost devices. Output can be long.)

Should you delete ghosts? Usually no. They cause no harm and take almost no space. Remove one only when it causes a real problem (for example, an old network adapter keeps a name you want to reuse). To remove: right-click the greyed node and choose Uninstall device. Take care to remove only the one you are sure about, and never remove a ghost that you are not sure of.

6.3 Disabling vs Uninstalling a Device

You met the buttons in Section 5. Here is how they differ for hidden and ghost devices.

Disabled device:

• The hardware is connected, but Windows has turned the device off.
• The node is shown in the normal view with a down-arrow icon.
• Code 22 ("This device is disabled") is its status.
• It uses no resources and its driver is not running.
• You (or a program, or a PC maker's tool) can turn it back on with Enable device.

Uninstalled device:

• The node is removed from the list.
• If the device is still connected, Windows may add it back after a restart or a Scan for hardware changes.
• If the device is gone, its node does not return until you plug it in again.

Where else a device can be turned off:

Practical advice for this chapter's lab: Do not disable anything on a PC you rely on. If you want to see a disabled icon, use a spare or harmless device (such as an unused virtual adapter), and click Enable device straight away. A better and safer plan: skip it and read the icon in a screenshot or on a friend's PC.

6.4 Quick Troubleshooting Guide

Summary