I’ve been having a strange issue with a PCMCIA card on my wife’s computer. Every time the machine is rebooted, you are required to “Scan for Hardware Changes” in device manager. It does not automatically detect that the PCMCIA card is still plugged in. After searching google high and low for a solution, I thought about seeing if I could write a script that would automatically run a hardware scan at logon. Here is what I came up with:

  1. Download DevCon.exe from Microsoft: DevCon.exe
  2. Extract either the 32-bit or 64-bit executable to C:\Windows\System32\
  3. Create a file called: “devcon_rescan.cmd”
  4. Put the following text in it:
    @echo off
    devcon.exe /rescan
  5. Copy the file to C:\Windows\System32\
  6. Open the registry editor: Start –> Run –> regedit
  7. Go To: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
  8. Create a new string value called: DevCon
  9. Right click the new value and select Modify. Type in the path to the batch file you made (i.e. “C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\devcon_scan.cmd”)

Hope this helps somebody.