Correcting Windows Drivers
Q.
How do I remove incorrect or outdated drivers for my Ocean Optics spectrometer in Windows?
A.
All Ocean Optics spectrometers require device drivers to be loaded before the device is attached to your computer via the USB port.
Several Ocean Optics applications - including OOIBase32, SpectraSuite, OmniDriver and USB Programmer install the necessary driver files on your Windows computer. If a spectrometer is attached prior to the installation of these device driver files, Windows may install an invalid driver.
To correct this, just follow these steps:
Open the Device Manager in Windows.
- Right click the My Computer icon
- Select Properties to open the System Properties window
- Click on the Hardware tab
Click the Device Manager button.
Look for the incorrectly installed spectrometer driver. It will likely have an exclamation point on a yellow background or a red X icon beside it.
Right click the device and select Uninstall.
You may see a warning that you are about to remove this device. Click the OK button.
Disconnect the spectrometer from the USB port on your computer.
Install the software provided with your spectrometer. This will install the needed driver files to their proper locations.
Now, attach the spectrometer to a USB port on your computer. This will invoke the Windows Found New Hardware Wizard. The dialog box will ask you if Windows may connect to Windows Update to search for the software. Select Not This Time and click Next.
The next dialog box will ask what you want the Wizard to do. Allow the default selection, Install the Software Automatically, to be selected and click Next.
The Wizard will then automatically search for the software and install it.
Go back to the Device Manager as we did in the beginning and expand the node for Ocean Optics Devices. You should see your spectrometer listed below and the exclamation point or X that was visible before is now gone.
This means you’ve successfully installed the proper driver files and your spectrometer is ready to use.
