Can anyone recommend a (preferably free) tool for scanning for attached USB devices in a Windows environment? This is for development purposes only. I have a USB peripheral that I know works when it is attached to my system, but I'm having trouble finding it in the Device Manager. I would like to be able to scan for it specifically because I am extending my application to support more than one type of USB device, but it's hard to scan for. Thanks.
I would recommend you devcon.exe utility (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272). The call
devcon.exe find USB\*
will show the information which you need. With respect of the utility you can do the most things which you can do with the Device Manager.
You can download WDK (also known as DDK). After installation of of WDK look in C:\WinDDK\7600.16385.1\tools\devcon\i386 directory for the utility. Its source (if needed) you will find in C:\WinDDK\7600.16385.1\src\setup\devcon directories.