Get List of connected USB Devices

Question

How can I get a list of all the connected USB devices on a windows computer?

Answer 1

Adel Hazzah's answer gives working code, Daniel Widdis's and Nedko's comments mention that you need to query Win32_USBControllerDevice and use its Dependent property, and Daniel's answer gives a lot of detail without code.

Here's a synthesis of the above discussion to provide working code that lists the directly accessible PNP device properties of all connected USB devices:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Management; // reference required

namespace cSharpUtilities
{
    class UsbBrowser
    {

        public static void PrintUsbDevices()
        {
            IList<ManagementBaseObject> usbDevices = GetUsbDevices();

            foreach (ManagementBaseObject usbDevice in usbDevices)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("----- DEVICE -----");
                foreach (var property in usbDevice.Properties)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}: {1}", property.Name, property.Value));
                }
                Console.WriteLine("------------------");
            }
        }

        public static IList<ManagementBaseObject> GetUsbDevices()
        {
            IList<string> usbDeviceAddresses = LookUpUsbDeviceAddresses();

            List<ManagementBaseObject> usbDevices = new List<ManagementBaseObject>();

            foreach (string usbDeviceAddress in usbDeviceAddresses)
            {
                // query MI for the PNP device info
                // address must be escaped to be used in the query; luckily, the form we extracted previously is already escaped
                ManagementObjectCollection curMoc = QueryMi("Select * from Win32_PnPEntity where PNPDeviceID = " + usbDeviceAddress);
                foreach (ManagementBaseObject device in curMoc)
                {
                    usbDevices.Add(device);
                }
            }

            return usbDevices;
        }

        public static IList<string> LookUpUsbDeviceAddresses()
        {
            // this query gets the addressing information for connected USB devices
            ManagementObjectCollection usbDeviceAddressInfo = QueryMi(@"Select * from Win32_USBControllerDevice");

            List<string> usbDeviceAddresses = new List<string>();

            foreach(var device in usbDeviceAddressInfo)
            {
                string curPnpAddress = (string)device.GetPropertyValue("Dependent");
                // split out the address portion of the data; note that this includes escaped backslashes and quotes
                curPnpAddress = curPnpAddress.Split(new String[] { "DeviceID=" }, 2, StringSplitOptions.None)[1];

                usbDeviceAddresses.Add(curPnpAddress);
            }

            return usbDeviceAddresses;
        }

        // run a query against Windows Management Infrastructure (MI) and return the resulting collection
        public static ManagementObjectCollection QueryMi(string query)
        {
            ManagementObjectSearcher managementObjectSearcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query);
            ManagementObjectCollection result = managementObjectSearcher.Get();

            managementObjectSearcher.Dispose();
            return result;
        }

    }

}

You'll need to add exception handling if you want it. Consult Daniel's answer if you want to figure out the device tree and such.

Answer 2

If you change the ManagementObjectSearcher to the following:

ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = 
       new ManagementObjectSearcher("root\\CIMV2", 
       @"SELECT * FROM Win32_PnPEntity where DeviceID Like ""USB%"""); 

So the "GetUSBDevices() looks like this"

static List<USBDeviceInfo> GetUSBDevices()
{
  List<USBDeviceInfo> devices = new List<USBDeviceInfo>();

  ManagementObjectCollection collection;
  using (var searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(@"SELECT * FROM Win32_PnPEntity where DeviceID Like ""USB%"""))
    collection = searcher.Get();      

  foreach (var device in collection)
  {
    devices.Add(new USBDeviceInfo(
    (string)device.GetPropertyValue("DeviceID"),
    (string)device.GetPropertyValue("PNPDeviceID"),
    (string)device.GetPropertyValue("Description")
    ));
  }

  collection.Dispose();
  return devices;
}

}

Your results will be limited to USB devices (as opposed to all types on your system)

Answer 3

This is a much simpler example for people only looking for removable usb drives.

using System.IO;

foreach (DriveInfo drive in DriveInfo.GetDrives())
{
    if (drive.DriveType == DriveType.Removable)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(string.Format("({0}) {1}", drive.Name.Replace("\\",""), drive.VolumeLabel));
    }
}

Answer 4

Add a reference to System.Management for your project, then try something like this:

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
  using System;
  using System.Collections.Generic;
  using System.Management; // need to add System.Management to your project references.

  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      var usbDevices = GetUSBDevices();

      foreach (var usbDevice in usbDevices)
      {
        Console.WriteLine("Device ID: {0}, PNP Device ID: {1}, Description: {2}",
            usbDevice.DeviceID, usbDevice.PnpDeviceID, usbDevice.Description);
      }

      Console.Read();
    }

    static List<USBDeviceInfo> GetUSBDevices()
    {
      List<USBDeviceInfo> devices = new List<USBDeviceInfo>();

      ManagementObjectCollection collection;
      using (var searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(@"Select * From Win32_USBHub"))
        collection = searcher.Get();      

      foreach (var device in collection)
      {
        devices.Add(new USBDeviceInfo(
        (string)device.GetPropertyValue("DeviceID"),
        (string)device.GetPropertyValue("PNPDeviceID"),
        (string)device.GetPropertyValue("Description")
        ));
      }

      collection.Dispose();
      return devices;
    }
  }

  class USBDeviceInfo
  {
    public USBDeviceInfo(string deviceID, string pnpDeviceID, string description)
    {
      this.DeviceID = deviceID;
      this.PnpDeviceID = pnpDeviceID;
      this.Description = description;
    }
    public string DeviceID { get; private set; }
    public string PnpDeviceID { get; private set; }
    public string Description { get; private set; }
  }
}

Answer 5

  lstResult.Clear();
  foreach (ManagementObject drive in new ManagementObjectSearcher("select * from Win32_DiskDrive where InterfaceType='USB'").Get())
  {
       foreach (ManagementObject partition in new ManagementObjectSearcher("ASSOCIATORS OF {Win32_DiskDrive.DeviceID='" + drive["DeviceID"] + "'} WHERE AssocClass = Win32_DiskDriveToDiskPartition").Get())
       {
            foreach (ManagementObject disk in new ManagementObjectSearcher("ASSOCIATORS OF {Win32_DiskPartition.DeviceID='" + partition["DeviceID"] + "'} WHERE AssocClass = Win32_LogicalDiskToPartition").Get())
            {
                  foreach (var item in disk.Properties)
                  {
                       object value = disk.GetPropertyValue(item.Name);
                  }
                  string valor = disk["Name"].ToString();
                  lstResult.Add(valor);
                  }
             }
        }
   }

Answer 6

To see the devices I was interested in, I had replace Win32_USBHub by Win32_PnPEntity in Adel Hazzah's code, based on this post. This works for me:

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
  using System;
  using System.Collections.Generic;
  using System.Management; // need to add System.Management to your project references.

  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      var usbDevices = GetUSBDevices();

      foreach (var usbDevice in usbDevices)
      {
        Console.WriteLine("Device ID: {0}, PNP Device ID: {1}, Description: {2}",
            usbDevice.DeviceID, usbDevice.PnpDeviceID, usbDevice.Description);
      }

      Console.Read();
    }

    static List<USBDeviceInfo> GetUSBDevices()
    {
      List<USBDeviceInfo> devices = new List<USBDeviceInfo>();

      ManagementObjectCollection collection;
      using (var searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(@"Select * From Win32_PnPEntity"))
        collection = searcher.Get();      

      foreach (var device in collection)
      {
        devices.Add(new USBDeviceInfo(
        (string)device.GetPropertyValue("DeviceID"),
        (string)device.GetPropertyValue("PNPDeviceID"),
        (string)device.GetPropertyValue("Description")
        ));
      }

      collection.Dispose();
      return devices;
    }
  }

  class USBDeviceInfo
  {
    public USBDeviceInfo(string deviceID, string pnpDeviceID, string description)
    {
      this.DeviceID = deviceID;
      this.PnpDeviceID = pnpDeviceID;
      this.Description = description;
    }
    public string DeviceID { get; private set; }
    public string PnpDeviceID { get; private set; }
    public string Description { get; private set; }
  }
}