Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Installing IdeaCom HID Touch Screen (PS/2) can be trouble



Windows Update has an optional install “IdeaCom Technology Inc. – Input – IdeaCom HID Touch Screen (PS/2).”.
Warning! Don’t just download and install it because Microsoft Windows Update recommends it. If you don’t know what IdeaCom HID Touch Screen is don’t install it.
Think twice before you do this or you might be in trouble. Your mouse or touchpad might stop working and will be unresponsive.
If you have installed it and want to uninstall the update here are some tips you can use.
If you have a laptop and a touch pad you might not want to install it as the touch pad will not work and maybe not your PS/2-mouse either. That means the cursor will just stick to the middle of the screen. If you have a mouse you can plug it in (it should work if it is connected to the USB port) but without a mouse you need to use the keyboard only and that can be quite a task to use.
image
Notice that if you install it you will not find it among the Add/Remove programs.
If you have a mouse start the device manager. Without a mouse press the Windows key and start enter “device manager” and you will find it in the result. If it is at the top you can just press Enter.

Press left arrow so the Continue button in the UAC dialog box gets active and press Enter.
When the Device Manager has started press Tab to move to the tree view. Use the arrows and move to Human Interface Devices. Right click or press the right click button or Shift+F10 on the keyboard and you can move to Uninstall and press Enter and then follow the instructions. If you want you can check the box to remove the driver as well.
Reboot.
Visit Windows Update select it, right click and select Hide update so you don’t get fooled to install it (again).
image
It might also be needed to manually remove the driver.
C:\windows\system32\drivers\idcphid.sys can be renamed to idcphid.old for example or you can delete it.
Another way is to use System Restore to roll back to previous state. (Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore) and then select your Restore Point.
I got this on Windows Vista. Could be same in Windows XP.

6 comments:

  1. thanks ! I will not blindly accept 'recommended' updates anymore

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the tips! I was wondering why my tablet's mousepad wasn't working afterwards.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for your writeup. This happened to me and your article made it easy to reverse it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I wish I had read this before I accepted mine. My mouse stopped working and it wouldnt give me the option to roll back to the old one. I uninstalled it thru the "Uninstall Programs" Function but the file "idcphid.sys" remained on my system. I erased it but still my mouse is not working...

    ReplyDelete
  5. O Great, finally the resolution for my problem. I have a Dell Latitude and my touchpad and 'pointer stick' stopped working. At Dell they couldn't solve it! They even replaced all kinds of hardware. thanks a lot

    ReplyDelete
  6. I tried it but my pc was hanged and stopped working for a while.

    ReplyDelete

Some of the latest blog posts

Subscribe to RSS headline updates from:
Powered by FeedBurner

Contact Us | About JTB World | Subscribe to this blog
JTB World's website | Website General Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
^ Top of page

© 2004- JTB World. All rights reserved.