Accidentally Uninstalled Biometric using Device Manager and its not coming back

Anonymous
2019-01-10T04:37:08+00:00

Hello,

I seem to have permanently deleted the "biometric devices" category in the Device Manger. Windows Hello using a biometric device no longer works. 

I have a home built desktop with a Mouse Cm-01a Window Hello camera. It was working very well for about a year. Some combination of the 1809 update and new AMD Graphics Card Drivers stopped it from working consistently.

I began trying to roll back graphics card drivers and do other troubleshooting. I even performed a recovery and it did not solve the issue. I read that I could uninstall the camera and have Windows reinstall the drivers. When this didn't work, I attempted to uninstall biometric devices and have it reinstall the divers. Unfortunately this category has never returned.

Now my Window Hello setting in Sign-in options says "Face and fingerprint recognition are not available on this device".

I have tried a lot of the steps you would see from other troubleshooting sites (edit group policy settings, restart the Windows Biometric Service), but no luck. 

I'm at my wits end here. I would rather not have to do another restore (that state wasn't working perfectly well as it was). Perhaps I have to do a Repair Install. Let me know if I have any other options (or if I just need to bite the bullet). Thanks!

Here are some system stats:

Processor: Intel i5-4690

RAM 16 GB

OS: Windows 10 Pro

Version: 1809

Build: 17763.253 (I am in the release preview track)

GPU: Radeon RX 580 Series (XFX brand)

Radeon Software Version: 18.40.21.06

Edit: Some of the responses have asked that I contact the manufacturer. Unfortunately, that would be me since this is a home-built desktop. I will see if I can find anything through Intel or ASRock (motherboard manufacturer).

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows Hello, lock screen and sign-in

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-01-23T20:59:16+00:00

    Hi,

    Can I ask, did it fix Hello Windows Face AND Fingerprint for you?

    After windows update I uninstalled the fingerprint sensor in device manager without deleting the driver files. Biometric devices did not show up anymore in device manager. I downloaded new fingerprint sensor drive from HP but it still does not show up.

    This fix worked in that Biometric devices is back but only with the face software device that I didn't even have before, the fingerprint is still not there.

    Windows hello face and windows hello fingerprint are still "currently unavailable".

    Any idea how I could get the fingerprint sensor back? As I uninstalled the driver, I need to delete the driver files too but I don't know where to find them. Until then I guess I can't install the new driver succesfully.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-11-01T10:37:37+00:00

    Brother Thank You So Much!!!!!!!!!!

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-09-12T23:13:38+00:00

    I had this same issue and it took me 2 day to find this and 2 minutes to fix it. My facial recognition works again.

    All other advice I found did not work. Many many site said to delete the driver, reboot and scan for new hardware. None of that worked. Couldn't find any drivers to download and the system came back with "not compatible with Hello Face" when I had it to begin with.

    Finally this worked. I can't believe how difficult it was to find this solution!

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-08-08T06:32:57+00:00

    Hello, can you tell me how to do this?

    I put the phrasing into the search bar (google) and saw

    Helloface.cat

    HelloFace.inf

    and

    AMD

    HelloFace.cat allows me to save it but doesn't do anything else.

    HelloFace.inf only shows up as a picture file. I can't install anything.

    Did you try to Right-click on HelloFace.inf and Install it?

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-07-29T03:22:44+00:00

    My Windows Hello failed after installing the July 2019 cumulative (security) update on my Surface Pro 5.

    The Biometrics driver failed so I had it removed. Fortunately I didn't remove the driver files.

    Scanning for new hardware doesn't work.

    I also installed the July 2019 cumulative (quality) update yesterday but that too didn't work because the driver is missing.

    So I tried @DenizSelcok's solution and it worked for me. Yay! 

    Edit: Oh I also tried to install the driver/firmware package from Microsoft... That didn't bring the Biometric driver back.

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