I found this solution out a little late, but better late than never. A while back, my mouse and keyboard suddenly stopped working after a reboot. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it was due to a bad Windows Update which had messed up the USB drivers.
The Problem
After the Windows Update some months, the USB device drivers were no longer “digitally signed,” meaning that Windows won’t load them at startup. If you have a USB keyboard and USB mouse, you would not be able to do anything.
I was able to find this out by attaching to my PC an PS2 keyboard that I found in the closet. In the Device Manager., I noticed that the USB hubs had “Code 52” errors on them.
For a while, I simply tapped F8 at boot up and would select “Disable Driver Signature Enforcement.” This became a pain in the butt rather quickly, as I would always forget and have to reboot twice.
Additionally, the command prompt method of disabling driver signatures with the bcdedit command were not working out for me and I would rather not have “test mode” stuck in the corner of my screen.
Solid Tip: This solution below is for Windows 7, either 32 or 64 bit versions.
The Solution
Thankfully, Microsoft has a hotfix for this issue with KB2615763-v2 and I have verified it works. You can download your version below. Simply run and restart your PC when prompted.
After restarting, your USB devices will work again and you can also see that the “Digital Signer” is now labeled as “Microsoft Windows” in your Device Manager.
| Version | Name | Date | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 bit | Windows6.1-KB2615763-v2-x86.msu | October 2011 | 578 K |
| 64 bit | Windows6.1-KB2615763-v2-x64.msu | October 2011 | 549 K |
If this hotfix helped you, sound off with a comment below!
This worked for me! After many attempts with other updates, drivers, hardware, and suffering, this quick patch worked. Thanks for the fix!
Hey that’s great news. I had been booting up Windows with Disabled Driver Enforcement until I found this. Afterwards, I also see that my local network connections can’t be reached now (so I still have to boot up with Disabled Driver Enforcement).
I would imagine the cause is similar.
Hey, I spent months trying to find a solution to this issue and I even called Microsoft. Their response was “we can help but we will charge $20 to look at the issue”. Though I could easily afford it, I just didn’t like the idea that somebody should charge me to fix a problem that they themselves created. I called Toshiba support(laptop was in warranty) and they tried for a full day without luck. I installed all the latest updates that Microsoft auto update asked me to and still the problem remained. I was about to give up and get rid of windows OS in despair and instead go with the free Ubuntu OS, luckily I landed on this site and thought why not give a last try. And presto! the patch worked. Funnily though, even Microsoft’s website does not mention about this particular fix (googling KB2615763-v2 does not point to any Microsoft article)
I am still unable to understand why Microsoft has not released this fix as part of their regular update after they messed it up with a bad update.
Anyway, I am really thankful to this post and am back to being able to use my USB ports again. I will still go ahead and install Ubuntu as an alternate OS and move to it eventually. Goodbye Microsoft!
I love getting comments like these! I am glad this fix was able to help out another person.