What is "HID Keyboard Device" in Device Manager (Win 7)

Question

I see "HID Keyboard Device" listed twice under "Keyboards" listing in the Device Manager. What do they mean? Do they represent the laptop keyboard? Why are there two of them?

Windows 7 64-bit Dell Studio XPS laptop

Answer 1

A HID Keyboard Device is just a generic keyboard. Keyboard devices are now common enough that basic drivers and support for them are a solved problem. Odds are one of the devices listed in your device manager represents the keyboard used to type your question.

But what about the other one? It turns out that lots of things are, at their core, "keyboards". Barcode scanners, for example, are often built to look like a simple keyboard from the perspective of the computer. So are some infrared devices, joysticks/gamepads, smart card readers, and even fingerprint sensors. But, I suspect in your case, the 2nd device is what processes the signals when you use your Fn or Fn Lock key.

Answer 2

HID is a TLA (Three Letter Acronym) for "Human Interface Device". Microsoft uses this term for most input devices (keyboard and mice typically). In the device manager, it just refers to keyboard that uses the standard microsoft driver. You may have two if you have used a docking port or have installed other speciality keyboard drivers.

Answer 3

Windows incorrectly listed mouse as keyboard. Confirm these - both your mouse/keyboard is USB type - you swap plug these two device interchangeably between two USB port on your computer

I found this out when troubleshoot 'allow this device to wake the computer'. By tick only one of them at a time, I found one actually represent mouse and the other one is keyboard.

Uninstall/reinstall does not fix this issue.