Need windows XP legacy driver help

[tweeve2003]

I am working on a friends machine.
I got her tower, it is an old P4 2.8ghz system running win XP.
She wants me to clean it up and clean out any spyware and viruses. Normally this is a 20 min to an hour job and easy money for me.

Except that when I plug in a USB mouse and a PS/2 keyboard I am getting stopped by windows stupid legacy driver installation wanting me to agree to install the drivers for the PS/2 Keyboard and the monitor. This is a problem because I cant use the mouse as the drivers are not yet fully installed and I cant use the keyboard because it needs the legacy drivers. As far as I can tell the mouse will install fine, but it keeps getting hung up on the legacy driver prompts and stops driver installations. The USB keyboard got hung up as well due to the legacy drivers for the monitor, it wont finish installing the drivers before the legacy driver prompt comes up. I have tried both safe mode and normal boot up. I have tried 3 different keyboards, 2 PS/2 keyboard and a USB keyboard. Everything gets stopped because of the legacy driver prompt and I cant get past it to finish driver installation.

They keyboard works fine in dos and bios, what I need to know is there a way to disable to legacy driver prompt from command line? Its the only way I can think to get past this issue.

 

[JoeBleed]

I've never seen this. I've never seen any xp machine not work with ps2 keyboards or mice. I've also never had an issue with plane usb keyboards or mice. even some multifunction devices will install and work in basic mode with no prompts.

Was her keyboard and mouse working that she'd been using? Do you have them and/or have you tried them plugged into the exact same ports?

other option to try is sense you can use the bios is look for legacy usb support and try enabling/disabling that. Shouldn't matter as long as you're only using a usb mouse.

This sounds more like it may be malware issue or some really screwed up system files and are in dire need of a file backup, hard drive wipe, xp reinstall and updating.

 

[tweeve2003]

The system is an older Dell, I didnt see anything in bois for legacy support.
The issue is the signed drivers, if the drivers are not signed it pops up with a prompt that asks if you want to install anyway. But when it does that it kinda stops all other drivers from finishing installing like a usb mouse that has signed drivers.

I didnt have her keyboard or mouse yesterday so I was using one of my own. I have her keyboard today which gives me a work around to the problem.

I know there is malware on the system that is one of the reasons she wants me to clean it out, if I cant clean it out, I plan on backing up her address book, emails, documents, and bookmarks and starting over.

 

[mikeymikec]

I've seen it before, it's bloody annoying. My workaround when that happens is to use either the same keyboard or mouse as was originally used when the machine worked, and from there get control of the system.

It's one of those problems that I've never had to spend a huge amount of time to work on because getting hold of the keyboard/mouse has always worked and is less work.

 

[Bubbaleone]

Microsoft standard PS/2 and USB driver installation occurs automatically, after the device has been connected and Windows is then booted to the desktop for the first time. The standard drivers are signed and will work with any PS/2 or USB compatible keyboard or mouse. The only messages you should be seeing are that Windows has detected new hardware, Windows is installing the device, and (if required) that the computer needs to restart in order to use the new hardware. You should start disinfection using Combofix from the desktop, then follow with a Malwarebytes scan. If the infection/s persist, use a bootable AV disk like Kaspersky's Rescue Disk.

.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Generally Win2K/XP does not like if you switch from PS/2 to USB and vice versa. Best to stay with whatever was connected when you installed.

You can (but its by no means a certainty) run into some pretty weird issues when/if you do.

 

[sm625]

You are saying if you have a PS/2 keyboard plugged in, you can not use it to install a mouse driver?

 

[Bubbaleone]

In the past few years I've had more than a few clients complaining about not being able to install their new mouse or keyboard. In all but a few of these the problem has been a keylogger that's modified the (insert brand name) mouse or keyboard drivers for it's specific puposes and, blocks the installation of any new drivers. Keyloggers are generally very stealthy and don't do anything obvious to give themselves away.

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[Ketchup]

In situations like this (aka super pain in the rear situations) I usually just put the hard drive in my desktop to remove the major items, then put it back in its machine to remove everything else.

 

[tweeve2003]

it was basically windows xp signed drivers, why the basic drivers built into the system were acting like they were not signed drivers I dont know.

Once I got the keyboard that came with the system I was able to use to original keyboard to select install anyway and get the drivers installed for the monitor and the mouse (which needed drivers as well).

Normally I like keeping PS/2 mice and keyboards around so I dont end up with this issue, but this time it worked against me.

I have disabled the legacy driver prompt so it just installs the drivers anyway.

I ran spybot search and destroy and am now running malwarebytes to clean out the system I also plan on making sure the anti virus is up to date and working, and plan on defraging the system.

 

[JoeBleed]

In all but a few of these the problem has been a keylogger that's modified the (insert brand name) mouse or keyboard drivers for it's specific puposes and, blocks the installation of any new drivers. Keyloggers are generally very stealthy and don't do anything obvious to give themselves away.

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This is what i was thinking. windows drivers are signed and the basic drivers, especially pst2 which should have been installed anyway given the ps2 ports where there already, should not have ever come up with this.

I work on a lot of xp machine and have worked on a lot of 2k machines. If there is a ps2 port there and it works, i've never been prompted about keyboard or mouse drivers. I've never had a problem switching between ps2-usb or usb-ps2. Only time i see driver alerts for keyboards or mice are for plugging in usb ones. then they just install as generic Human Input Devices

If your scans don't turn up a keylogger or something similar, i'd try more scans using different tools and methods of some kind.

Good luck