I've disabled both my keyboard and mouse drivers, any way to enable them back via bmr?

Question

As stated in the question, I've mistakenly disabled both my Windows drivers and can no longer move either of them. I'm stuck on the login screen

I've tried creating a dual boot with another windows, then copy/pasting them, to no avail. I've also tried to run some basic commands, as sfc, and dism via the bmr, with no success.

I've tried to find the basic windows drivers to reinstall them, but can't seem to see a solution.

So I came here in hope of enlightenment: Is there a way for me to get it all working again ?

Edit (5/5/2022) : The only solution I found was to reset the computer, which was done.

Answer 1

A few probable solutions:

1. Boot into safe mode.
2. Before the Windows kernel is fully loaded, hit ctrl and F8 at the same time. Though it doesn't sound very scientific, with faster boot times I will hold ctrl and just spam F8 like crazy (sometimes I'll hit a bunch of keys!)... The key is to hit it AFTER the BIOS posts, but BEFORE you see the windows logo.
3. From here, select "Enable Safe Mode" and see if your KB/Mouse works once it boots. If it does, go into device manager and re-enable the drivers, if not, see the next option.

One problem with Safe Mode is it still loads a list of drivers, however it uses a new configuration for them and only loads "official" drivers; If you boot into a recovery mode from an installation media however, it will load Window's default drivers and config, while still letting you edit the config on the installed system.

1. Download the media creation tool (assuming you have Windows 10) on another PC and use a USB (easy to follow instructions here)
2. Plug the USB into your broken system, and hit some keys (normally F8, F2, or Escape) to get into the boot menu and select your USB drive to boot from (this varies slight from computer to computer)
3. Select "Repair Computer" in the left. DO NOT select install.
4. From here, follow the prompts on screen until you can get to a terminal (CMD).
5. At the terminal you can open regedit and navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
   Here you can add entries to files that will run when Windows starts/users login.
6. Note, that if you have more than one user this won't run until you login, you can change allot of settings from here to make your auto-login if you are not using a MS account or are on versions of windows newer than Windows 10, you can set the auto-logon account and remove the password via the CMD & Regedit (a quick google search will show you how) if you have a Microsoft account, you can use the CMD to create a new local user (admin) and set the password to nothing, and then use the Regedit to set it to auto logon as that user.
7. Create a batch file somethingsomething.bat and build a query based on this answer keeping in mind you may have to try this a few times until you get the output and learn what to use for the input etc... (Note, from here you could also do a bunch of options, like enable RDP (remote desktop) stop services (like antivirus) and related that might let you get easier access into the computer. Depending on how your devices got disabled something like RDP may work. Keyboards and Mouses, rrr mice, mices, the pointy thing uses HID drivers (Human Interface Device) so it really depends on what happened to that.

Hopefully something here helped, if you can provide more info we can help more. It would be helpful to know:

1. What operating system are you using (Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, etc)
2. What happened right before the devices stopped working? Do you believe it was something you did or something else (like a virus, corruption, update, hardware failure, etc)
3. What are some things you have tried, and what resources do you have access to (do you have another computer you can use, do you have admin rights on the computer, is it a MS account or a local account, etc)

The last thing, that sounds dumb, but it's worked in the past... Change USB ports to a port that has never had a Keyboard or mouse on it. When a new device is recognized Windows associates that port with a device type and driver so just changing ports (or moving from "USB2 to USB3 or vice versa) may help; also reboot the computer with them in different ports so the Kernal loads them (but start by changing them while the system is running, and give Windows time to associate the port and driver (5 mins)).

Answer 2

I have a few ideas on how to fix this, but I have no idea if any of them would work. I'll post them as separate answers.

If you have RDP or WinRM (or even SSH server. I've never tried it on windows, but I've seen it in advanced features) configured, you could try connecting from another computer and enable it that way.

WinRM shouldn't be dependent on keyboard/drivers as that, if my understanding is correct, is basically remote shell.

RDP could be dependent on the drivers. Or it might not. I'd guess that it is not, but I really have no idea about RDP internals.

Answer 3

Can you make an autorun.inf file on a USB with another pc and have that file autorun a script containing the steps given by @Esvin Joshua

https://www.samlogic.net/articles/autorun-usb-flash-drive.htm

There's a link on how to make that autorun file. I haven't tried this but good luck!

Answer 4

You could try to make a bootable USB from Windows ISO (as of now available here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10) on another computer and then run it's "Repair computer" feature.

You might not even need the USB, just press F8 (I believe) while it's booting up windows and there should be some options (including the "Repair computer" one) available. You'll need to disable "Fast boot" (or whatever it's called now) though.

Answer 5

I cannot make comment, so will leave answer here instead.

The question leave out important detail on what driver is disabled. If it's just kbdhid/mouhid then suggestions related to RDP login will probably work. If it's kbdclass/mouclass then the only way I can think of is to boot into WinPE/recovery environment and use "reg add [keyname] /v Start /t REG_DWORD /d 3 /f" to enable them again.

HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\kbdclass HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\kbdhid HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\mouclass HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\mouhid

EDIT: Of course you have to load the registry from %windir%\System32\config first to edit it.

Answer 6

Assuming you have an external wireless keyboard(what I am about to say won't require a mouse);

press windows key + r type cmd and press control + shift + enter to launch cmd as admin.

Next, write the command rundll32 keyboard, disable. Hit Enter. The keyboard will stop functioning(hold on I know you want to turn it back on and I am getting there)

to turn it back on just type rundll32 keyboard, enable to turn it back on.

Answer 7

If you have a PS2 keyboard/mouse laying around (and your motherboard has PS2 input connector), you could try that. Maybe USB and PS2 use different drivers.

Answer 8

You could make use of a tablet that is not using mouse drivers: it would allow you to manipulate the cursor and make clicks.