Webcam stopped working

Wasn't sure whether to put this under software or hardware?

The webcam suddenly stopped working on my W7 PC but still works on my W8 laptop.

It's an MS VX 5000 lifecam

When I plug it in it it's recognized but the drivers won't install (I've downloaded the drivers.exe from MS) and when I click on the lifecam.exe on the short cut I get a message, "There is no camera connected to this computer".

In device manager there's the small exclamation mark and when I try to update the drivers I'm told that I have the latest ones.

Any help would be much appreciated,

Michael

 

Hi my fellow , welcome to MG's :major

You can look at these topics

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...ted-to-this-computer?forum=itprovistahardware
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...-my-dell/21217a8a-df43-48f1-a84a-98332cf9fdfa

maybe you have to either unplug the camera during installation or there is a usb problem :wave

 

I worked through the links but nothing helped

I uninstalled the drivers and that didn't help.

I uninstalled the webcam using Revo (had to use Hunter mode) and deleted everything in the registry - "lifecam".

Ran the driver exe file and that completed OK but still got, "there is no camera connected to this computer.

Went to device manager and choose "browse for driver on my computer I get (see attachment) and all are said to be digitally signed

I chose the latest one and got a message, "the driver has been installed but you must reboot your system".

Feeling very optimistic I rebooted my pc but am now back to the same message ...

"There is no camera connected to your computer :-(

 

Well I just tried another webcam and it has the same problem.

There is a message though, "Windows cannot verify the digital signature for the drivers required for this device. A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source. (Code 52)".

I just ran hi-jack this and it found nothing.

I will run a couple of couple of programs to check for "malicious software".

 

BTW - although the camera isn't being found, somebody just called me on Skype, and the microphone in the webcam is better found and is functioning well.

 

usbvideo.sys was the problem. It was unsigned and after I replaced it both cameras immediately worked.

Replacing the file is problematical because it's a protected file but I found this on the web.

takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\drivers\usbvideo.sys

cacls C:\Windows\System32\drivers\usbvideo.sys /G michael:F


Michael

 

I am happy it sorted out :wave