I have a piece of hardware (Steinberg Midex 3) which plugs into a USB port. On Windows 98se and Windows 2000, this has worked fine. I could unplug it and shove it back in when I needed it and the OS never once forgot which driver to use. However - now I'm on XP, it gets all shirty about the driver being "Unsigned by Microsoft". (Note: This is a clean install of XP) And if I unplug it and then plug it back in, I have to reinstall the drivers from the CD Rom. (The driver files still exist in the right directory, so I can do most of the install from HD) I think this is to do with driver signing, because I also have another USB device which needs the drivers reinstalled every time I plug it in (a data bridge). However, every time I plug in hardware that Microsoft is happy for me to use, I can just go right ahead. Is there some setting that I'm being dim about? Surely I don't have to keep up this behaviour? Thanks for any and all advice Tom

XP is getting "shirty" because it usually does not need any drivers loaded. If you remove the driver you installed, re-boot & plug in the device XP will find it's OWN driver, only if it cannot & brings up the new hardware wizard should you install any third party drivers. XP does seem to cater for almost anything being plugged into the USB ports, at least in my experience. Rgds, Bob Mitchell.

Unsigned drivers are simply a driver that have not been tested by M$ laboratory to ensure system stability. WHQL Drivers are proper name for unsigned drivers. Click me for more info. i_XpUser

This is a long shot, but you could try installing the drivers one time with the Unsigned Drivers warning turned off. Just a hunch. Right-click My Computer and select Properties. On the Hardware Tab Click Driver Siging and then select the option to Ignore. Michael J

Bob - thanks. I should have been clear - XP does not recognise this device straight after a clean install. What is upsetting is that it also doesn't seem to recognise it after I've loaded the *^£&ing drivers umpteen £&^$ing times. (I never expected it to know it from the M$ driver list - its a piece of slightly unusual equipment that isn't going to lead to lots more money for M$.) [[Incidentally, my printer is automatically recognised by XP - and guess what? Yep - the driver XP has is the WRONG ONE. Even the "latest driver from the MS website". So, no - I'm not just going to accept an XP driver - but that isn't the issue here. And before you ask, its a very standard Epson printer - and its own drivers work fine]] XPUser - thanks. I followed your link. I now know the official terminology I should be using! MichaelJ - thank you for some constructive feedback. I already tried that. I think the key to this problem is in the fact that I have to physically remove the connection, and so it is when XP first sees the newly attached machine it doesn't recognise it. I think the actual installation method is a red herring. This really smacks of the kind of issue which used to be resolved by changing a setting in the control panel (you know - when the owner of the computer had more obvious control over how it worked) but since I'm certainly not an expert on XP, I am reliant on it knowing what its doing. And in this case its being really stupid! Any other ideas? Thanks so far anyway Tom