Determine Device Hardware Identifiers and Device Setup Classes

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can use this procedure to determine the hardware identifier or device setup class for a device on your computer. When you use DevCon or scripts to interact with the devices on your computer, you must often supply a hardware identifier or device setup class as one of the arguments to the command.

Any user account can be used to complete this procedure. However, only members of the Administrators group can make changes to the devices.

To determine your device identifiers by using Device Manager

  1. Open Device Manager.

  2. Right-click your device in the tree, and then click Properties.

  3. On the device Properties page, select the Details tab.

  4. In the Property list, select Hardware Ids.

    The most specific identifier, called the Device ID is the top item in the list.

  5. In the Property list, select Device Class.

    The list displays the device class.

Note

The value in each list can be copied to the clipboard for later use by right-clicking the value, and then clicking Copy. You can use SHIFT-click and CTRL-click to select multiple entries at one time for easy copying and pasting.

Additional references

  • TechRef page on what HWIDs and Device Setup Classes are.