Troubleshooting Device Installation with the Setupapi log File

Introduction

Windows XP and later versions log system operations more extensively than previous versions of Windows do. One of the most useful log files for debugging is the SetupAPI log file (setupapi.log). This plain-text file maintains the information that SetupAPI records about device installation, service-pack installation, and hotfix installation. Specifically, the file maintains a record of device and driver changes, as well as major system changes, beginning from the most recent Windows installation. This paper focuses on using the SetupAPI log file to troubleshoot device installation; the paper does not describe the log-file sections that are associated with service-pack and hotfix installations.

SetupAPI consists of the Windows Setup functions and the Windows device-installation functions. For information about these functions, see “Setup API” in the Platform SDK documentation and “Using SetupAPI Functions” in the Windows Driver Development Kit (DDK) documentation. For general information about device installation, see “Device Installation Overview” in the DDK documentation. For information in the DDK documentation about SetupAPI logging, see “Using SetupAPI Logging.”