Arduino Micro Driver issue

Hey guys!

I am having trouble using my Arduino Micro with my Laptop. It is running Win 7 64bit and I can't get the drivers to work. I stumbled across the problem when I tried to upload a sketch and noticed that Tools -> Port was grayed out. Funny enough it isn't when I plug my Uno in.

The really strange thing is that when I press the reset button of my Micro the port button is available and the pc even notices the micro... for all but 3 seconds.

I have uninstalled and installed the IDE multiple times with ccleaner runs between the installs and I have tried to manually install the divers. When I do this I get the error that there was no driver found.

Do you have any idea?

What type of USB port are you using ?

Have you tried another USB cable ?

Where did you purchase your MICRO ? please add a link.

Make sure you disconnect anything else from the board BEFORE you try anything.

CCLEANER is great but misses some things...Added better instructions for clean up below.

CLEAN UP BEFORE INSTALLING ANOTHER COPY OF THE IDE OR ARDUINO CREATE

The FREE "Wise registry cleaner" does a good job also without the need to trawl through the registry.

"REVO uninstaller" also does an exceptional job of clean up and removal too.

"CCleaner" is another favourite of mine too.

They are my GOTO for swapping IDE's and clean ups of other programs.

Be aware that if you use CREATE as an IDE there are additional directories and clean up to take into account.

Removal of the regular IDE without attention can disable CREATE requiring another install.
Just because it says ARDUINO doesn't mean its the regular IDE.

Even an "unzipped" copy of the IDE will also leave traces in the registry regardless of what anyone says. The paths are kept along with a few other things.

If anyone doesn't believe that then try running an unzipped version on a clean machine and then do a registry scan for "arduino".

Also check your "roaming" profile too under windows as it's not uncommon to also find Arduino related items in there as well.

REMOVE or RENAME the "arduino15" folder

Open File Manager.

Click VIEW

Click OPTIONS

Click the VIEW TAB on the box that just opened.

Select and tick Show hidden files, folders, and drives

Click APPLY and YES to any additional boxes that might pop up.

Navigate to the users folder and open your folder in there.

You should see a folder called AppData go in there.

Depending on how your computer was set up and user levels you should see three folders

Local

LocalLow

Roaming

In at least one possibly more you should see the "Arduino15" folder. Choice is to rename/ move/ delete. Deletion is often the best method.

REMOVE or RENAME the CREATE folders

C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Roaming\ArduinoCreateAgent
C:\Users\yourname\AppData.arduino-create

Now run CCLEANER and follow the onscreen prompts.
Whilst still in CCLEANER select the registry option and do that too. Allow it to create a backup (I have never needed it but better safe)

Close out CCLEANER and if you have REVO installed use that to uninstall the IDE's but remember to select ADVANCED and at the end stages hit the SELECT ALL options.

Now run the WISE REGISTRY cleaner and select DEEP SCAN
Let it do its thing and allow it to delete every issue it finds.

You should now be OK to re-install the IDE of your choice along with CREATE if you use it.
Don't forget to say yes and allow the items CREATE or the IDE will offer you especially in regards to drivers or certificates and firewall permissions.

Thank you for your thorough help!

I was following your instructions when I noticed something odd.

I had deleted the IDE and had run both ccleaner and Wise Registry cleaner and were about to install the IDE again when I noticed that in my device manager there was still an unknown device under other devices with that yellow trinalge with the exclamation mark. And I thought I had forgotten to unplug my board. But as it turned out it wasn't pluged in - nothing was. So I restarted the laptop but still - it is there saying that the drivers weren't installed (code 28). So I checked the id and as it turns out it is simething from my hp laptop. This means that the Arduino micro doesn't shows up under other devices at all when it is plugged in...

I then installed the IDE from https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software and had the exact same problem.
I monitored the device manager when I pressed the reset button on the micro - it refreshed but no new devices poped up under other devices. Under which category would an Arduino be normally?

I forgot to mention that I have used this Arduino with no problems in the past.

To your questions and things that I did:
I am using USB 2.0
I have 2 ports on my laptop and I have tried both - no diffrence
I have tried another cable - again no difference
I purchased the Arduino - Genuino to be preceice from Amazon (https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B018Y129AU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
I had everything disconnected

Find out what you are missing from the laptop drivers and fix that first.
Seen some crazy things fix other things with drivers.

Also check and see if there were any recent Microsoft updates and roll them back.
Same with your other driver issue see if that will roll back.

If there are no drivers the Arduinos tend to show up with the exclamation mark in unknown devices but that's not always the case.

Some Arduinos have gone down due to the sketch used which can on rare occasions set it up to tell the computer it is something else entirely. EG telling it to become a keyboard or mouse or some other device.

Some of those instances require you to re-flash the bootloader to bring it back to normal.

I think I figured it out... I uploaded an empty sketch to the Micro in the few seconds it was registered after pressing the reset button. Now everything seems to work - well at least the blink example haha.

Furthermore I know what caused the whole mess... apparently you are not supposed to programm an infinite loop... although this one was even on purpose: I checked for run time errors and if one appeared I entered an endless loop with which blinked the onboard LED... so I guess the arduino doesn't like that... xD

Phew least you got it going again