can not remove unknown devices in device manager

​Hi,

1. Are you logged in as an Admin?
2. Do you have all the drivers up to date?

If you have any hardware issues as faulty hardware can cause this issue.

Yes loggin in as Admin and all drivers are up to date. Ran scans from Dell, Intel and Mircosoft.

The unknown device is a "Aswebr Miniport" - a phantom device..has no physical presance on the PC.  And has no third party software involved with it. A Windows system file / service (aswebr.sys) appears to be in control of this device.

Jay

I suddenly have a bunch of unknown devices showing up in Device Manager - seems to have started around March 28, 2012....the first one, now there are 16 of them. All are under Network Adapters with the same hardware Id of MS_ASWEBRMP. I can disable them in Device Manager but not uninstall them. And on occasion, after reboot, Windows will automatically discover the very same device and attempt to install it...that's why there are 16 of these devices now. Can not remove these from the registry either no matter what I do for setting permissions and or group policies.

I'm running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit on a Dell Studio XPS 1645. Interestingly enough on my other Dell Laptops with Windows 7 Home (with same Lan and Wireless adapters) these unknown devices do not show up.

Any help would be appreciated...I'm out of ideas, and Dell support has no idea either. They refer me to Microsoft for Windows 7 support, insisting it has to be an OS issue.

Jay

Hello JaysenGlebold,

Please try to boot your computer in Safe-Mode and try to uninstall the specified devices from the Device Manager. Some devices can be only uninstalled from Safe-Mode.

Thanks,

I hope this solves the problem :)

Thanks for responding.

Alread tried that - can not uninstall the devices in safe mode either, can not remove them from the registry in safe mode either. I tried uninstalling them while all network services were disabled as well  - no luck. 

There is a Windows system file (aswebr.sys) that appears to be in control or is calling on these devices -  I renamed that file to aswebr.bak rebooted and then once again tried to uninstall the devices - no luck with this either. Also noticed that upon reboot Windows put a new copy of aswebr.sys in the SysWOW64 folder so my renaming that file was apparently nullified.

Jay

Followed both of those Methods Arya.

System File checker found no missing or corrupted files. And system restore could not help - went back as far as I could. Upon reboot windows once again attepts to install this unknown device. As mentioned in my frist post, this problem did not exist prior to March 28, and only updates from Windows where completed from that date on - no new third party software or any hardware changes.

Again this problem only seems to occure on my Windows 7 professional pc. The other pc's in the house are all running windows 7 home addtion and none of these have this problem.

Jay

Hi Arya thanks for responding.

Regarding:

#1 - made no changes what-so-ever to the pc prior to this issue - other than automatic updates from the Windows Update site.

#2 - No error messages other than Windows can not find or install the device driver. But when I send Windows on a search for an updated driver it returns the following error message:

"Windows found driver software for your divice but encountered an error while attempting to install it."

"Aswebr Miniport"

"Insufficient system rescources to comple the requested service."

And when I do a Goggle serach for "Aswebr Miniport"  no results are found.

Method 1:

Ran Fix It a number of times - detectets the devices (sees them as disabled - I disabled them) When I allow Fiix it to enable them it tries to find drivers but can not.

Method 2:

The issue also occures in safe mode.

Method 3:

The pc has all the latest drivers available from the manufacturer website, as well as Mircosoft and Intel - chip sets.

Method 4:

Norton Security Suite 6.1.2.5 is active on the PC and finds no viruses. However I will also run the Microsoft safety scanner just to be sure.  And I will get back to you.

Jay

Hi,

1. Did you make any changes on the computer prior to the issue?
2. Do you receive any error message?

Method 1:

Run the fix it and check.

Hardware devices are not working or are not detected in Windows

http://support.microsoft.com/mats/hardware_device_problems/

Method 2:

Step 1: Check if the issue occur on safe mode:

Start your computer in safe mode

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Start-your-computer-in-safe-mode

Step 2: If the issue doesn't occur in safe mode then, try to perform a clean boot and check if any third party software is causing the issue.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Note: After trouble shooting put the computer to start as usual by performing step 7 from the above Knowledge Base article.

Method 3:

You make sure that the computer have the latest update for the drivers from the manufacturer website.

“Update a driver for hardware that isn't working properly”

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Update-a-driver-for-hardware-that-isnt-working-properly

Method 4:

Run a Microsoft safety scanner to make sure computer is free from virus infection:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx

Disclaimer:

If you run the virus scan the program that is infected with virus will get deleted. So you have to reinstall the program. Also if the files and folders are affected with virus then they might even get deleted