Windows 10 - Reinstalling Hardware Drivers with DevCon

Tested on Windows 10 64-bit.

Manual/UI Way

Go to Device Manager, locate the faulty entry (mine is a Bluetooth-WIFI card) and right-click & select "Uninstall driver". Then "Scan for hardware changes" (Menu: Action).

Semi-manual/command-prompt way

1. Download & install Windows Drivers Kit (WDK) [direct link]. Ignore "warning" as you just need to use the DevCon.exe tool.
2. Locate devcon.exe. Usually in this path (by default): C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Tools\x64
3. Optional: Add the path into environment variable PATH.
4. Run "Command Prompt" as an administrative user.
5. Locate the "troublesome" hardware:
• At the prompt: devcon hwids * > c:\Windows\Temp\hwids.txt
• This will dump the hardware list to the hwids.txt file. Open with Notepad(++).
• Locate the hardware entry. E.g.
  
• USB\VID_13D3&PID_3501\5&343F8C61&0&1
•     Name: Qualcomm Atheros Bluetooth 4.1
•     Hardware IDs:
•         USB\VID_13D3&PID_3501&REV_0001
•         USB\VID_13D3&PID_3501
•     Compatible IDs:
•         USB\Class_E0&SubClass_01&Prot_01
•         USB\Class_E0&SubClass_01
•         USB\Class_E0
• Pick a string that's unique to the hardware entry. E.g. "VID_13D3"
• Run this command to make sure the results only return the hardware entry: devcon hwids *VID_13D3*
• Example output:
• • C:\WINDOWS\system32>devcon hwids *VID_13D3*
  • USB\VID_13D3&PID_3501\5&343F8C61&0&1
  •     Name: Qualcomm Atheros Bluetooth 4.1
  •     Hardware IDs:
  •         USB\VID_13D3&PID_3501&REV_0001
  •         USB\VID_13D3&PID_3501
  •     Compatible IDs:
  •         USB\Class_E0&SubClass_01&Prot_01
  •         USB\Class_E0&SubClass_01
  •         USB\Class_E0
  • 1 matching device(s) found.
6. Confidence high, now you can run the 2 commands below sequentially to 'reinstall' the hardware driver:

• Remove hardware entry: devcon remove *VID_13D3*
• Rescan for hardware changes: devcon rescan

You can then add the 2 commands into a BAT file for faster execution.

References:

• https://ccm.net/faq/1886-enable-disable-a-device-from-the-command-line
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/devcon
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/download-the-wdk