win10 no longer allows plug n play keyboards to work

MeAndMyComputer · 17 Feb 2018

Please ensure your keyboards do work on another computer, then stay with one that does work and let us know which one it is. I can't tell if the Logitech K120 is the one your son took back.

Try Control Panel > Troubleshooting > Hardware and Sound

Control panel > Ease of Access Center
--- Check out on-screen keyboard settings: see if it's set for the on-screen keyboard is set to automatically be used
--- I haven't done the above but looking into the Ease of Access Center settings it looks like those ideas might be possible.

Try a different USB port

jul · 18 Feb 2018

Thank you all very much for your help and ideas. I tried so many things, but this had to be the weirdest thing that's ever happened to any of my computers. Obviously the part/pieces/software for searching for and using plug and play devices was working (at least in part) because it had no problem with mice, headphones, any other plug 'n play device.....but failed to install any of the three different brand keyboards. They weren't disabled, the computer could 'see' that they were there, just without any drivers, and I made sure all the settings were correct (several times) even though I never changed them in the first place. All devices work just fine, all the USB ports work just fine,....I finally just threw up my hands and did a reformat.
This time I am making sure to make restore points (duh, I should have done that in the first place.)

MeAndMyComputer · 18 Feb 2018

"I finally just threw up my hands and did a reformat." I probably would have made the same decision .
Thanks for letting us know your solution.

EdTittel · 18 Feb 2018

Yes, do please let us know if you're able to get back up and running. There have been a rash of recent reports of keyboards and mice gone missing (together) and it would be nice to piece together what the heck is going on. Thanks!
--Ed--

jdporte · 19 Feb 2018

We have been experiencing this same issue on 6 computers now. We can get into the bios & the usb keyboard & mouse work fine. As soon as it boots into windows we can no longer use USB devices at all. We can use our screen sharing application to get into the computer remotely & see that all of the USB devices in the device manager have a yellow exclamation point on it. We have tried removing & reading them, rebooting, updating drivers, checking for windows updates. Nothing seems to get them to work properly. The only option we have had success with is doing a windows repair. This resolution is not very good for us as it takes over an hour to get the machine back, even harder when it is a remote machine. It does fix it, but we would really like to understand why it is happening. It happens right in the middle of a user working, not on a reboot or any other time.

Berton · 19 Feb 2018

When I've seen a similar issue it turned to be the USB 3 ports not getting the drivers loaded by the OS. The USB 2 ports have support in the BIOS and the OS while USB 3 only by the OS.

jdporte · 19 Feb 2018

unfortunately for us, none of the USB ports will work. This issue started last Thursday for us & we have seen it on 6 computers now.

EdTittel · 20 Feb 2018

I remember seeing something this morning about backing out a recent Windows Update fixing problems with accessing Win10 peripherals. Goes off to look ... can't find it ... so must instead suggest that you look at your Update History and search the forums for reports regarding the KB numbers for updates most recently applied to your problem PC. If others are having similar problems, it should pop right out. Sorry for the vague and imprecise instructions, but this may turn out to be helpful anyway. And if you do find something suspect, you can try uninstalling the suspect update. You should then be able to tell pretty quickly if it makes a difference or not.
--Ed--

PS: found the other thread. The likely culprit is KB4074588, according to this parallel thread in this very forum: https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/104555-keyboard-mouse-not-recognized-after-boot-up-5.html (see post #41).

jdporte · 20 Feb 2018

Kind of sad to have to do this on two different issues within the last few weeks. About a month ago we had 25 computers "blue screen" we had to launch command prompt from the recovery environment and back out a couple of updates. After getting the computer back up & running we applied the same updates with no problems. Between these two issues "blue screen" & "USB not working" windows 10 is killing us. We haven't had time to work on anything else but restoring computers. Very frustrating. I just wish we could do something to prevent these instead of having to just continually fix them one by one.