How to fix it when Windows 10 updates break the mouse or Windows 10 updates break USB controllers

Bear with the story. There really is a neat fix before the end of the page, but I wanted to show off my detective work, so... (you can ignore the story, and move straight to the fix by only reading the bold face sentences).

Feature updates to the May 2020 update (2004) of Windows caused my nice (and expensive, fancy, ergonomic and vertical) new mouse to no longer be detected. The mouse worked fine on other devices, like on Windows 7 desktop machines in the office next door. "I tell you, Windows 10 is a con game," declared my offspring. "Use Windows 8. Look at me, I've never done a single update and the machine boots up in 7 seconds flat." (It is at times like this that you understand why some animals eat their own young).

The only solution that worked the last time this happened, in October 2020, was to roll back the update. Which rollback itself was probably glitchy; my screen often freezes now while I wait for the last sentence I typed to actually show up on the screen. (You think Windows 10 and Google Docs hate each other? I do). From the other end, my collaborator will be shooting off queries on chat: are you there? where did you go? why aren't you typing the next point? and the like. And here I am practicing elaborate shrugs and singing half a song, and suddenly about three sentences zip onto the screen like a record-breaking typist has been hired to replace tardy ole me. But to return to the Windows 10 update and how it broke my mouse (which it didn't, really, but that would be a spoiler, so, onward with the tale).

However, in Feb 2021, Windows 10 sneakily ran a second update the next day, and therefore I could not roll the update back (Microsoft, why do you do this?? 'Create Restore Point' used to store dozens of restore points so that you could roll back software installations, windows updates and all kinds of stuff. Now, they only permit one (1) rollback and any previous Restore Point is assassinated by update ninjas (who look like extras in a B movie with a rating of zero stars). This is useless, Microsoft; please don't mess with us like this!)

Withal, I spent a couple of hours desperately looking for the latest mouse drivers. Zilch, nada. All the drivers insisted they were the latest and most up to date on the planet. I have never seen such a set of smug, self congratulatory and fashionista drivers looking down their well-bred noses at me.

So, in desperation, I ordered another mouse, sadly stroking my new but dead looking mouse and blubbering about how much I loved it. But right before hitting the pay button, something struck me and I went into the office next door and pulled off the desktop mouse and checked it on my laptop. I mean, I really love this mouse, can I avoid selling the carcass to a glue factory right away? Sure enough, that other mouse didn't work either. Cancel new mouse order! Clearly, this update (May 2020, feature update 2004) was going to gobble up any and every mouse that I attached to my laptop, and not even burp.

I called up my computer security geeky bro-in-law, and he went: "Hmm, try some other USB device and report what happens." So I did. And guess what? Nothing worked any more on any of the USB ports.

"Aha!" we both went. Basically, the Windows 10 update has broken the USB ports, not the new mouse. It's not, as we had suspected the last time that the Windows 10 update did the dirty on me, that the mouse driver was broken. Watson, note that the dead body has no tattoos. It is not the mouse, it is the USB port. The official statement by the Windows 10 update was a fake, to make us think the crime was a different one.

A side note: the reason we thought it was a driver problem was that all over the internet, people were saying the feature update breaks drivers. Don't always trust the internet.

Anyhow, I went to the Windows help centre, and somehow found a page saying what to do if the USB ports don't work. (Here, knock yourself out). The offspring also pinged me the very same page, saying, "Here, mom, try this. If it's a USB problem like you're yelling, maybe it will fix it." (OK, maybe I should not eat the offspring; had I checked the ping first, I could have saved a few minutes of searching).

I carefully read the page and tried Method 1. Equivalent to sprinkle water on the face of the patient. Fail.

I tried Method 2. Equivalent to try smelling salts under the patient's nose. Fail.

I was now on the last available Method. Now, this seemed a bit drastic to me. Remove all controllers and reboot and hope that Windows will fix it?? That's equivalent to: stab the patient, bury the body at a crossroads at midnight, wait till the next morning and hope for reincarnation, isn't it?

Method 3 is actually a bit vague for Windows 10 users. What you're supposed to do is to click on the Search (magnifying glass) icon next to the Start button (the windows icon), and in the search bar that opens, you type devmgmt.msc, and, ignoring all other options, click on the icon for the Microsoft Common Console Document which has this icon:

Be sure to ignore all other 'helpful' suggestions that pop up while you are typing away. Until you finish typing the last 'c' of 'devmgmt.msc', it will not show you this 'secret' tool. 🙄

This replaces steps 1 to 2 on the Microsoft page. Step 3 is: Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers. [Note You might have to scroll down the list to find this item, because it is likely to be the very last one.] This is what it looks like. If it doesn't look like this, it means you clicked a wrong app along the way.

Step 4 tells you to uninstall all the devices, one by one.

Anyway, following Method 3 up to step 4 (where my footsteps faltered), I could see five devices under USB controllers sub-heading, four with the USB icon, and the last one, USB 3.0 controller, with some other fancy icon. That's me standing over the patient with a bread knife and sweating.

I nervously right clicked the first icon. I see a disable option. "Why not," I asked myself, "try turning it off and then on before killing it?" So I did. Now I see it as disabled... WAIT A MINUTE! That's the same icon as I see on USB 3.0 controller. Sure enough, it's disabled. I enabled both. That's the protagonists of the movie cutting the wires on the nuclear bomb as the clock ticks down to 3 seconds.

Plug mouse in. Ta da! Plug other device in. Ta da! YESS! Disaster averted, the world is safe.

So, people, moral of the story. Don't murder the device managers and hope for resurrection. The Windows update didn't break the mouse, nor did it (really) break the USB port. It had just knocked the USB controller unconscious, and was issuing press releases saying, It's dead, Jim, and recommending flowers and plaques.

So, if your Windows 10 update has broken your mouse and/or USB port, use the Method 3 up to the point at which you find the USB controllers at step 4. Do not kill them and act like a necromancer. Merely wave your magic healing potion, and just enable the disabled controller. The controller will wake up and groggily ask, Where am I? Why are you all looking like you've seen a ghost?

Pat it gently on the head and talk of other things when it asks what happened to the last 6 hours.

Update (27 Mar 2021): If it's KB4061319 that breaks your mouse, there is nothing to do but uninstall the update, bury it at the crossroads at midnight with a stake in its heart, and hope like mad it doesn't rise like some undead vampire and come and haunt you again.