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USB Bridge Cable - Windows 98 Installing Wrong Drivers!?

I posted this in the Technical Support forum, but no reply was given, so I thought i'd try this here...

I bought this wonderful usb Bridge Cable with Plug and Play connectivity, right? After all, that's what usb's about... Well I plug the cable in, and Windows asks for the software. I put in the disc, and everything installs fine. Windows recognizes the driver, and everything's wonderful. So I go to my next computer, and plug the other end of the cable into the usb port. I boot up the computer, and Windows 98SE recognizes a usb device, and takes matters into it's own hands. It recognizes the device only as "Unknown Device" and proceeds to install the "Unknown Device" driver from the Windows\INF directory. It never prompts me to locate software for it.

Well, no big deal, right? Just go into device manager and install the driver. Well, I click on the "Update Driver" button, and search the directory with the Bridge Cable driver in it, Windows goes right over it and says the the "Unknown Device" driver is the best one, and it will continue using it.

Anyways, to make the story shorter, I tried removing it, and plugging it back in when it booted onto the desktop, but it does the same thing, installs the "Unknown Device" driver. So I tried unplugging the other end of the Bridge Cable; no help. Now I'm rather mad at it, I've spent a couple hours trying different configurations, unplugging and plugging it back in, downloading usb and chipset updates, and even removing all usb devices from the device manager, and having windows reinstall them all.

Nothing worked.

So finally, I get the idea, "Why don't I just reverse the cable, and try that..." Well, I do that and my second computer recognizes the bridge cable, and installs the correct software. So I plug the cable into my first computer, and that one, the one that installed fine, doesn't recognize the cable, and installs the Unknown Device driver.

To summarize all this, one end of the cable is recognized by windows, but the other end is only recognized as "Unknown Device", and it automatically installs default drivers, which I can't seem to overwrite, because the .INF file won't show up in hardware detection, or manual install.

My question is, Is there any way that I can Force windows to install a Driver for a device?

Otherwise, my only other solution is that the cable must be faulty.
 
That doesn't look like it will be of much help, but I'll check it out...

I'm trying to get in touch with the manufacturer of the product to see what they have to say...
 
there are 2 things that could be of some use with that link above....1 gives you an idea on how to setup the network and 2, which does lead to some USB problems depending on the device, is that the software and network are setup before you acually plug in bridge cable.
 
The wierd thing is though, I can plug one end of the cable in, and it shows up in the device manager. But if I unplug it, and plug the other end in, it shows up as unknown device. I still haven't recieved a reply from the manufacturer, otherwise I plan to keep you updated...
 
Sounds like a defective cable. Either end should behave identically.
I'd recommend upgrading to WinXP on both machines. Then if the USB Bridge Cable still won't install the correct drivers, replace it.
 
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