iPhone does not connect to Windows

Dear community,

Whenever I plug-in my new iPhone SE to a Windows Laptop (i tried two different ones) it is not recognized and I receive the following message: "USB device not recognized. One of the USB Devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it."

In the device manager, the iPhone SE is being shown as "unknown device" and it doesnt appear in portable devices.
My old iPhone 5S has no issues connecting to both computers. and my IPhone SE is recognized without problems by a Macbook.

I bought the iPhone 2 weeks ago and when I installed it and loaded the back-up on to it, everything worked fine.
Product: iPhone SE. iOS 9.3.3. all components (Windows, iOS, iTunes) are up to date.

I spent already hours on trying to solve the problem, going through dozens of websites searching for solutions:
- I tried different USB ports
- Itried different cables
- I totally deinstalled all apple software from my computer (including Bonjour, Apple Mobile Device, etc. etc. in the correct order)
- I re-installed itunes several times and in different versions
- I switched off my laptop, took out the battery
- I deinstalled, deactivated and installed the USB drivers several times
- I manually installed the USB driver several times
- I deinstalled iTunes and installed the drivers offered by CopyTrans
- Since I am currently working in a country which is embargoed (I work in humanitarian aid), I installed a VPN and installed iTunes while running on a VPN connection
- I worked on the anti-virus programme I think I tried more than that, but this is what comes to my mind.

I am hesitant to put the iphone back to factory default. because at the moment I can at least use the phone. if cannot connect after the factory default my phone is useless. unfortunately I am currently not close to an apple store.

Did anyone have similar problems? Does anyone have another advice?

Your help is much appreciated.
Best regards, Zelophan

Hi Zelophan,
Same thing happened to me. Follow this link and work your way through the solutions:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204095
For me Windows 10 changed the Apple driver to a generic USB driver for both my iPad and iPhone. Replacing the Microdoft driver with the correct Apple driver that was already on my PC fixed the problem. It should take just a few minutes. Let us know if this fixes the problem.

SoFine409 said:

Hi Zelophan,
Same thing happened to me. Follow this link and work your way through the solutions:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204095
For me Windows 10 changed the Apple driver to a generic USB driver for both my iPad and iPhone. Replacing the Microdoft driver with the correct Apple driver that was already on my PC fixed the problem. It should take just a few minutes. Let us know if this fixes the problem.

Hi SoFine409,
Thanks for your quick reply.
I worked through this solution several times already. Unfortunately it still doesn't work.

Check to be sure the port on the phone is clean. They tend to get filled with lint if you carry the phone in you pocket. This happened to me. You can also try using a different cable. Does the USB port on the laptop work with other devices?

Since you've tried it on two different win 10 laptops using SFC to be sure the system file are intact would probably not help although at this point it couldn't hurt.

SoFine409 said:

Check to be sure the port on the phone is clean. They tend to get filled with lint if you carry the phone in you pocket. This happened to me. You can also try using a different cable. Does the USB port on the laptop work with other devices?

Since you've tried it on two different win 10 laptops using SFC to be sure the system file are intact would probably not help although at this point it couldn't hurt.

One of the laptops runs on win 10, the other on win 7 enterprise.

As stated in my first post:
- the phone connects without problem to a MAC; cleanliness cannot be the issue
- I tried different cables and USB slots
- both laptops connect withouth problems to my old Iphone 5S

not sure what you mean with your last sentence.

I was thinking about using the system file checker SFC but if both laptops exhibit the same problem then it's not going to work.

there is one last thing that might help. That is resetting the location and privacy settings on the phone.
What to do when iTunes won't recognize your iPhone or iPad | iMore

give this a try

You can upgrade your iPhone OS and install the its latest version. We know that, if you want to transfer any media files like Audio, Video and photos from iPhone to computer then you need to install iTunes. After installation you should restart yourcomputer and iPhone also.

As far as I know, Assistant for iPhone program allows user to connect iPhone to windows via WIFI, so you needn't use USB.
Hope it is helpful to you.