Discover the Windows Device Manager application and learn what you can do with it.
Those of you who have Windows have surely heard of the Device Manager at some point. Most people use it simply to see what devices are on their computer and do not enter the ability to manage them.
But it can do much more than simple monitoring, as it can show you all the "hidden" devices on your system, manage them and solve any problems.
If you want to know everything you can do with Windows 10 and Windows 11 Device Manager, read this article.
Table of Contents
What is Device Management?
Device Manager is an application found by default in Windows operating systems. It was first introduced with Windows 95, almost three decades ago.
It is a tool designed to allow users to monitor and manage the hardware devices installed on their computer system.
You can also use Device Manager to update hardware device drivers (or software), modify hardware settings, and troubleshoot problems.
The application window offers a central view of your computer's components, as well as your peripherals, organized into categories. Each category can be expanded to reveal the specific devices within it.
These include the processor, graphics cards, network adapters, storage controllers and a bunch more. When a device is not working normally it is displayed in a different way (eg bold text) to notify the user.
How to open Device Manager
Right-click on the Start button and from the menu that appears select “Device Manager”.
Alternatively you can issue the command devmgmt.msc from the Windows run window or from the Command prompt. There are other ways to start it.
Uses of Device Manager
The Windows Device Manager enables you, in addition to overviewing your devices, to perform a variety of tasks, such as changing hardware configuration options, managing drivers, enabling or disabling hardware, and detecting conflicts between hardware devices. Let's see them in more detail.
View your devices
Device Manager lists all of your computer's hardware components, both the actual physical components and the hardware components that are emulated by the software you've installed.
Items are grouped by category. You'll find common categories such as audio inputs and outputs, disk drives, display adapters, DVD/CD-ROM drives, printers, audio, video, and game controllers, and Universal Serial Bus (USB) controllers, among others.
You can expand any category to see the devices it contains and check their status.
For example, in the screenshot above, under drives, you can see that I have installed three drives, one external with USB and one stick. You can also see their exact model and type.
View Properties of each device
If you want to see more information about a particular device, right-click it and then select Properties.
In the Properties window you will see detailed information about the device, including its status. However, it may not be as comprehensive as the information displayed by System Information.
Fix drivers
A great use of Device Manager is to see if there are any hardware items that you don't have drivers installed on.
If there are devices without drivers, you will find a category named Other Devices as shown in the screenshot above. Expand it and Device Manager shows all devices that are unknown to Windows.
Here, you may find a number of devices with their generic names. For example, Device Manager may tell you that it found an Unknown device or a Network Controller but it doesn't have a driver.
Install the correct driver
You can either install a device driver from scratch, or simply update it to a newer or older version.
This can be done on all devices listed in the Device Manager, internal or external (cameras, speakers, printers, etc.).
For each problematic device, right-click on the device name and select "Update Driver".
A Windows wizard will open giving you two options. Either you let Windows search and install a driver for you, or you choose a specific one that's on your disk.
Additionally, if Windows does not recognize the device, you can choose the type of device from a large list of device drivers that Windows has.
Read it "Complete guide to Windows drivers".
View hidden devices
Another lesser known use of Device Manager is that it can show “hidden devices”.
Most of the time, these are drivers that are installed by software you use on your computer (eg virtual machines) or devices that were connected to your Windows computer at some point.
There you can also see the "Other devices" category. To view them, click the View menu and select “Show hidden devices.”
Hidden devices are listed in the list of normal device categories, but they are grayed out.
In the photo above you can see which disks, sticks and card devices have passed through our computer at some point.
There is no point in removing all unused drivers, as they are very small in size and if you reconnect an earlier device Windows will read it immediately, without delay.
Disable or enable devices
Although we don't recommend doing this, you can disable devices from Device Manager, and even remove them.
This prevents Windows from using them, so be careful what you disable.
To disable a device right-click on the device name and then select Disable Device.
Windows warns you that this device will stop working and asks for your confirmation to disable it. Deactivating a device will cause it to stop working
Depending on the type of device you decide to disable, you may be prompted to restart your computer.
Reactivating a device is similar. Right-click on it and select Activate Device.
Scan for new material
If for some reason Windows doesn't detect a device you've connected to your computer, you can use Device Manager to force it to scan for hardware changes.
One way to do this is to click on the “Action” menu and then select “Scan for hardware changes”.
Windows will scan your machine and any peripherals attached to it for any hardware changes that may have taken place.
