Share via

USB Camera fails to initialize on startup

TiONSewm 0 Reputation points
2025-08-05T01:19:51.1266667+00:00

Current setup:

  • Tablet with a Windows 10 IoT Enterprise image
  • Application communicates to a USB camera on startup
  • Application setup with as the custom shell (instead of explorer.exe)
  • USB camera uses the pre-installed usbvideo.sys driver.

Issue:

I have an issue with a USB camera video system that is permanently connected to a tablet (via an internal USB hub). On some tablets the camera is correctly initialized and the application can see a video stream but on others it does not initialize. Only by manually re-installing the drivers via device manager does it seem to fix it. In some cases, the tablet ends up failing again and the drivers need to be re-installed again. What could be the issue and how could I fix it? Does this happen to anyone else?

Windows for business | Windows for IoT
0 comments

1 answer

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Beatrix 1,350 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-08-06T07:17:18.8866667+00:00

    Hi,

    Thanks for the details.

    It seems the USB camera fails to initialize on some tablets running Windows 10 IoT with a custom shell. Reinstalling the driver helps temporarily, but the issue can return after reboot likely due to timing, power settings, or driver load order.

    Here are a few things to try:

    Go to Power Options > USB settings > USB selective suspend, and set it to Disabled. This stops Windows from turning off USB ports to save power.

    Add a short delay (10–15 seconds) before your app starts, to give Windows time to detect the camera.

    Ensure usbvideo.sys loads early at startup by setting its registry Start value to 0 under: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbvideo

    This helps make sure the driver is ready before your app needs it.

    Hope this helps!

    0 comments

Your answer

Answers can be marked as Accepted Answers by the question author, which helps users to know the answer solved the author's problem.