Windows PC does not allow keyboard, mouse usage at boot
Had a laptop come in where it would appear to boot normally, but at the logon screen both internal and external keyboards and mice did not respond. In Windows Repair, everything worked fine, just not within the operating system itself.
The machine had a locally managed encrypted SSD which I wanted to decrypt before reimaging it, and there were some other items which would be more easily remediated if I could get 1-2 working login sessions before dropping the hammer on it.
It did have working networking, so I gathered info via Event Viewer and established that I had access to the admin share and could control the machine via psexec. Using psexec to start SFC did not resolve the issue, nor did CBS.log point me in the right direction.
The Event Viewer log for System noted a bunch of driver start events (Application Popup Event ID 26, Kernel-PnP Event ID 219) including for mouhid.sys. The "hid" rang a bell as being related to Human Interface Device, so it seemed like I might be on to something. Finally I came across a forum post which mentioned log files in c:\windows\inf. I obtained the files via the C$ admin share and had a look through them.
At the bottom of setupapi.app.log were some lines including the following:
!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\keyboard.inf_amd64_neutral_0684fdc43059f486\kbdclass.sys'
!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.
!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_7a5f47d3150cc0eb\sermouse.sys'
!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.
!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_7a5f47d3150cc0eb\mouclass.sys'
!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.
!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_7a5f47d3150cc0eb\mouhid.sys'
!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.
I restarted the machine using psexec and shutdown -r, and pressed F8 to obtain the boot options screen. I had tried many of the options previously, like Safe Mode, but had not tried Disable driver signature enforcement. Obviously there was no guarantee Windows would boot these drivers it didn't like the look of, but it was my best option. Fortunately, it did boot and gave me enough time at console to do what I needed to do, before turning the machine over to a colleague for reimaging.
The machine had a locally managed encrypted SSD which I wanted to decrypt before reimaging it, and there were some other items which would be more easily remediated if I could get 1-2 working login sessions before dropping the hammer on it.
It did have working networking, so I gathered info via Event Viewer and established that I had access to the admin share and could control the machine via psexec. Using psexec to start SFC did not resolve the issue, nor did CBS.log point me in the right direction.
The Event Viewer log for System noted a bunch of driver start events (Application Popup Event ID 26, Kernel-PnP Event ID 219) including for mouhid.sys. The "hid" rang a bell as being related to Human Interface Device, so it seemed like I might be on to something. Finally I came across a forum post which mentioned log files in c:\windows\inf. I obtained the files via the C$ admin share and had a look through them.
At the bottom of setupapi.app.log were some lines including the following:
!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\keyboard.inf_amd64_neutral_0684fdc43059f486\kbdclass.sys'
!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.
!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_7a5f47d3150cc0eb\sermouse.sys'
!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.
!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_7a5f47d3150cc0eb\mouclass.sys'
!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.
!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_7a5f47d3150cc0eb\mouhid.sys'
!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.
I restarted the machine using psexec and shutdown -r, and pressed F8 to obtain the boot options screen. I had tried many of the options previously, like Safe Mode, but had not tried Disable driver signature enforcement. Obviously there was no guarantee Windows would boot these drivers it didn't like the look of, but it was my best option. Fortunately, it did boot and gave me enough time at console to do what I needed to do, before turning the machine over to a colleague for reimaging.
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