Force the OS to search for new hardware.

[TheTraveler]

Here is my scenario. I install drivers for a USB device and our software product. The installation installs smoothly and a reboot to replace files is not required. However, the OS has not detected the USB hardware unless you do a reboot. How do you force the OS to search for new hardware?

The target operating systems are Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.

[TheTraveler]

I found the answer. Here it is for those who may run into the same problem.

external prototype BOOL NewDev.UpdateDriverForPlugAndPlayDevicesA(HWND,         // HWND  hwndParent,
                                                                 BYVAL STRING, // LPCTSTR  HardwareId,
                                                                 BYVAL STRING, // LPCTSTR  FullInfPath,
                                                                 LONG,         // DWORD  InstallFlags,
                                                                 POINTER       // PBOOL  bRebootRequired OPTIONAL
                                                                );
strDLL  = WINSYSDIR ^ "NewDev.dll";
strTemp = WINDIR ^ "INF\\MyUSBDevice.inf"; 
    
nResult  = UseDLL(strDLL);
if (nResult = 0) then
    nHwnd = GetWindowHandle (HWND_INSTALL);
    bResult = UpdateDriverForPlugAndPlayDevicesA(nHwnd, 
                                      "USB\\VID_04FA&PID_2490",
                                      strTemp,
                                      1,
                                      NULL);
    UnUseDLL(strDLL);
endif;

Please keep in mind that this works only because I modified the inf file not to copy any files into place. My merge module did that for me. I hope this helps others. Also, the function call is a Win32 call. It is documented in the MSDN library.