USB device connected to Laptop native USB port stops working after AnywhereUSB Manager is installed

Introduction

This article is is about an issue not with the Digi AnywhereUSB Manager software referenced, however since the installation of the Digi AnywhereUSB Manager software appears to trigger this issue, we provide this information as a public service.  The issue described below has occurred with at least one Lenovo laptop running Windows 11 Pro, and the following solution resolved the issue.  The issue was also seen in Windows 10 when a USB Docking Station was in use.

Prerequisites

The AnywhereUSB Manager software has been installed on a standalone Windows 10 or Windows 11 Pro server or Laptop.

Issue

A USB device (example: USB Mouse) plugged into the native USB Port of the Windows 11 Pro server or laptop has stopped working after AnywhereUSB Manager software was installed, and the server/laptop has been rebooted.

Solution

1. Download the zipped Registry file from here, then unzip it locally to your hard drive.

2. Apply the attached Registry fix to your Windows 11 environment by finding the (unzipped)  Digi-AnywhereUSB-Windows11-dock-fix.reg file with Windows Explorer, and either highlight then double-click the file, or highlight --> right-click, choose Open (select Run when prompted in the popup window).

3. Reboot the Server or Laptop.

4. Test to see if the native USB port-attached USB Device that was having issue is now functioning after the reboot.  If the USB device is now functioning, the Registry fix is a success and this process is complete.

5. If the native USB device  still isn't working, use Regedit (Path: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\awusb3hc\Parameters]) to edit the current dword Hex value of 0000000e (which equals 14 in decimal), and try another value to get this fix to work.  If "e" doesn't work, go into Regedit and try other values like f(15), a (10), b (11),  9, etc.

6. Repeat steps 3 (Reboot Laptop) and step 4 (Test USB device for successful operation) to see if trying some other Hex value in step 5 is necessary.  A reboot of the Server/Laptop is needed each time this value is changed.

If this issue is occurring in a Windows 10 environment, the Hex value usually needs to be set to 4 or 5 when a USB Docking Station was the device having issues.  In Windows 11,  it seems there are more USB controllers, so the larger hex numbers shown above typically need to be used for the fix to work.

Further Information

This issue appears to be related to the number of USB controllers a Server or Laptop has, when Windows has a problem with USB Controllers being loaded in the wrong order.

Moving our controller to a higher value (e) by using the Registry edit process described above is to avoid such a  conflict and allow the USB Mouse, Docking Station, or other USB device(s) affected by the conflict to work.