Monitor USB drives and retrieve device Info using a DeviceWatcher?

Question

I\'m a WinForms developer and I already knew how to monitor the USB\'s that connects or disconnects using WMI, but time ago I\'d discovered the DeviceWatche

Answer 1

You can get PnPObject from the interface ID which will give you more device specific information.

public static IAsyncOperation CreateFromIdAsync(
  PnpObjectType type, 
  string id, 
  IEnumerable requestedProperties
)

seems pretty interesting fellah. You have few different options to specfy for PnpObjectType,

DeviceInterface | deviceInterface - The PnpObject represents a device interface.

DeviceContainer | deviceContainer - The PnpObject represents a device container.

Device | device -The PnpObject represents a device.

DeviceInterfaceClass | deviceInterfaceClass - The PnpObject represents a device interface class.

The id actually is interface id, which you already received.

Also note that you have list of properties you can ask for(requstedProperties argument): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh464997.aspx#ListOfCanonicalProperties.

It's true that there's not too much for you, but don't be scared. There's a lot more of them: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff553416.aspx

If you check devpkey.h, you can find interesting properties, such as:

• DEVPKEY_Device_DevType
• DEVPKEY_Storage_Removable_Media
• DEVPKEY_Storage_Portable
-

Some of the things are device specfc, some of not. You can get even more properties through devmgmt.msc(Details->Property). There's also bunch of stuff in the registry. The Unified device property model discusses this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff553515(v=vs.85).aspx

PnP api has following methods:

Await DeviceInformation.FindAllAsync()
Await Pnp.PnpObject.FindAllAsync(Pnp.PnpObjectType.DeviceContainer, ...)
Await Pnp.PnpObject.FindAllAsync(Pnp.PnpObjectType.Device, ...)
Await Pnp.PnpObject.FindAllAsync(Pnp.PnpObjectType.DeviceInterface, ...) 
Await Pnp.PnpObject.FindAllAsync(Pnp.PnpObjectType.DeviceInterfaceClass, ...)  
Await Pnp.PnpObject.CreateFromIdAsync(..., id, ...)

You can read this article: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/458550/Device-enumeration-in-Windows

It has everything, source code, keys, and shows how to dump all the properties from devices into file. This way you can see what properties your USB stick has.