Windows 10: Ghost Devices in 20H2 Device Manager

Why are there a bunch of ghost devices in 20H2 when I show hidden devices in Device Manager? Some of those ghost devices are floppy drives and controllers, PS/2 mouse and keyboard, two COM ports, IDE controllers, Intel 82371AB/EB IDE bus master controller, a bunch of Microsoft Hyper-V devices. All of these have the first install date property of 9/27/2020 in the detail tab. This didn't happen in earlier versions of Windows 10 including up to 20H1. This is after a clean install of 20H2 using a 20H2 bootable USB drive from Media Creation Tool.

:)

 

Device Manager Un-Hiding Hidden Devices

When you connect a plug and play device, Windows Plug and Play manager detects it, finds and installs the driver. Device Manager lists the device with a solid icon.

The driver is only removed when you uninstall the device, not simply by disconnecting the device. When the device is disconnected, its driver is still installed. By default, Device Manager only displays connected devices. When you show hidden devices, note the Bluetooth icon you see is semi-transparent (not opaque). That indicates a "non-present" device. Sometimes also called a "ghost" device. The driver is still installed but the device is not currently detected (i.e. not connected).

Device can be disconnected when

• Device unplugged (e.g. removing a USB device)
• Turning a device OFF
• Disabling the device in BIOS (then windows won't detect it) or
• Device failure

So

• Check BIOS as suggested
• Check board connections
• Can b/t be turned off by a switch? or keyboard combination?

Also possible the b/t h/w failed

 

Can't remove disconnected (ghost) network device

Thanks for the suggestion, but it can't remove the NIC:




It's the only Intel I219-V that shows up in the device list of the DeviceCleaner program (it shows only non-present devices as I understand). Otherwise, the tool works - I found a ghost replica of the integrated GPU (Intel HD 530) and could remove it. Only the NIC gives this error message on removal, which is probably the reason I can't remove it the normal way through the device manager.

 

No hardware listed in Device manager?

I don't konw whathappend but in Device manager and in my Network connections there is nothing where there used to be a Modem listed and all my hardware in Device Manager. What happend and how do I fix this?