We ran into an issue where the (PS2) keyboard and mouse stopped working altogether. In the Device Manager, it showed them as having errors, and the message was “A driver (service) for this device has been disabled. An alternate driver may be providing this functionality (Code 32).”
After uninstalling all drivers that may conflict (IntelliPoint), and trying to redo the standard PS2 drivers, nothing. Until I stumbled upon this old post from Google Groups that pointed the way to a registry key that did the trick.
Navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services, then look for the special service i8042prt and set the value of “start” to “1” (automatic). At this point, you can either reboot or try the command-line option of net start i8042prt, which should work as well. Restarting did the trick for us in this case.
Comments
12 responses to “Windows XP Keyboard Errors”
Worked great for me thx!!!
I think what caused it was when i tried anything to get my keyboard to stop working completely as it is currently broken and keeps pressing keys which is quite annoying. I installed another keyboard driver that i knew would not work so as to dissable it that way. bad idea, cause the touch pad is hooked into the keyboard and caused it to turn off in the Registry. No matter how many times i reinstalled both it would not work. so i did as you said and it fixed it. again many thanx.
I am running:
Averatec Laptop
AMD Athalon 1.5ghz
256mb ram
SG3 64mb video card
AC ’97 codec combo driver
As soon as Windows Media Center Edition loads I have no keyboard. The Keyboard works fine before loading windows.
This information was the best!!!
Really helped solve my problem.
Thanks! Your solution really worked!
Thanks…
A great help for me.I was almost giving up just before I found this post.Thanks a lot.
I accidentally installed a driver for a Bluetooth keyboard instead of a PS/2, and have been using XP’s On Screen Keyboard and Google for the past 3 hours trying to figure out what to do. Just came across this and it worked great – thanks a lot! 🙂
That’s the trick!
This really helped! Thanks!!!
THIS WAS GREAT! THANKS.