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Help Connecting to Windows 7

I've been googling around and trying every dumb trick in the book. I've switches from MTP to camera and back again, clicked on USB debugging... I can get my PC to recognize the device but as far as copying content over, it's really hit or miss.

Sometimes stuff will copy over just fine, but most of the time I get a big nasty popup telling me it won't copy files over anymore. So I re-do all this crap again to try to make it work. It's getting frustrating. Can anyone help me get this stupid thing to connect to Windows 7 like it should?
 
All I can do with Kies is music, movies, and photos. It's extremely limiting. There's no way to just connect it to Windows Explorer?

That was the only way to install the driver so that my Windows XP box would recognize the Tab. I uninstalled Kies, and it left the driver. Same for Vista. I don't have a Windows 7 box to try it on, only 8.
 
Windows Explorer is what I'm talking about when i say "recognize the Tab". It wouldn't appear as a removable drive until I installed the driver from Kies. If you didn't install Kies, and let Windows pick its own driver, that might explain the problem you're having.
 
I've installed Kies on both devices though and it still does this.

I can get the files to transfer I just have to tinker with too many setting each time, and then after awhile the files stop transferring and I get error messages forcing me to do it all over again.
 
Before I make any suggestion,
What files [size, quantity and type] are you trying to transfer?

and of course what device [model, memory size etc]?
 
I want to put all kinds of files on my tablet. Photos, videos, and music files are great but I also purchased ebooks online for a different device along with comic books and things of that nature.

I have a galaxy tab 2 7 inch.
 
I've installed Kies on both devices though and it still does this.

I can get the files to transfer I just have to tinker with too many setting each time, and then after awhile the files stop transferring and I get error messages forcing me to do it all over again.

What settings are you changing, and what is the exact text of the error message? Have you tried a different USB port? Are you using the USB cable that came with the Tab, or an off-brand cable?
 
I'm using the cable that came with the Galaxy tab 2.

I said in my first post it's not an exact science, I kinda have to play with a few things I found while googling around. Namely, if I plug it in just about every time it says "Hardware ID missing". So then, on my tablet while still connected, I go into developer options in my settings and try to check "USB debugging". Sometimes this must be clicked off then on again. Sometimes it doesn't.

Then, if Windows still doesn't recognize my device, I'll drag the drop down menu at the top of the galaxy tab 2 and click either "camera" or "Mtp" to get my pc to recognize as a flash drive. Sometimes I then have to reactivate USB debugging mode lol. It's a nightmare.

Eventually though, I always get it to recognize my device. I have to do the same ting with my Galaxy s2 Epic 4 Touch. It just takes forever. The problem lies when I'm transferring files every now and then I get an error message that pops up and says something along the lines of "File can't be transferred because device has either stopped working or has been disconnected." Then I can't transfer anything unless I reconnect the device to my cable and start this whole process all over again.

So I guess is there anything you guys are reading here that can point me in the direction of a fix? Also, has this ever happened to anyone else when just trying to connect to Windows Explorer via the USB cable in Windows 7?
 
I want to put all kinds of files on my tablet. Photos, videos, and music files are great but I also purchased ebooks online for a different device along with comic books and things of that nature.

I have a galaxy tab 2 7 inch.

OK,
you do not say what ver of windows 7 you are running but I think they are the same for this purpose [I am running 64 bit premium].
First of all when you plug the power/usb cable from the Tab into a usb socket on the pc you really should be able to see the Tab in my computer. It will appear as a "portable media player" on my pc it says "GT-3100 media player"
when you click on the media player icon you will get a standard windows hard drive icon [called tablet], click on that and you should see all the folders in standard windows format and be able to drag and drop as you wish.
If......this does not happen, first of all try another usb socket on the pc, if no luck still, unplug the usb, reboot the pc wait until it has completely restarted and plug the usb cable back in.
If that does not work, then I would suspect the usb/power cable, is there another one you can borrow to try?

I know it is not much help but this is a simple procedure and you should not have a load of trouble or need other software, windows should see your Tab or any other device you plug in.
 
It's not the USB port because I've used several and it's not the cable because i have the same problem with my phone.

It's gotta be something with my windows. And yes, I'm using 64 bit windows 7. I'm going to do a full reinstall in a few months so once that happens I'll see if it's any better this time.

I know I'm not the only one with this problem. Googling "Hardware ID missing" brings up A LOT of results with A LOT of samsung products. No one's come up with a fix yet, just the workaround i described. Thanks for your input though, guys, I do appreciate it!
 
do make sure your windows update is on. or else windows does't install the drives once connected.
 
do make sure your windows update is on. or else windows does't install the drives once connected.

Windows update has nothing to do with plug and play. What exactly are you talking about?

The driver that Windows installs does not work, it needs to be the driver from Samsung Kies.
 
It's not the USB port because I've used several and it's not the cable because i have the same problem with my phone.

It's gotta be something with my windows. And yes, I'm using 64 bit windows 7. I'm going to do a full reinstall in a few months so once that happens I'll see if it's any better this time.

I know I'm not the only one with this problem. Googling "Hardware ID missing" brings up A LOT of results with A LOT of samsung products. No one's come up with a fix yet, just the workaround i described. Thanks for your input though, guys, I do appreciate it!

What is the driver version for the Tab in Device Manager on your PC? I'll check it against the version on my Windows 8 system before and after installing the correct driver.
 
Version: 2.9.319.511
Driver Date: 5/11/12

Allowing my Windows 8 system to install a driver before installing Kies, I get:

2.9.317.215
2/16/2012

After installing Kies with the Tab disconnected, then I connect it, then Windows detects a new device and installs this driver:

2.9.505.831
8/31/2012

Edit: 2.9.505.831 8/31/2012 is also the Vista driver. I can't imagine the driver loaded on your system is appropriate for Windows 7, if Vista and Windows 8 are both newer.
 
Welp, I downloaded Kies to get the spiffy new drivers and thats what it gave me. Nothing I can do about it on my end. I went to samsungs site to get drivers and all it offers me is stupid Kies... soo........ I'm SOL I guess.
 
Welp, I downloaded Kies to get the spiffy new drivers and thats what it gave me. Nothing I can do about it on my end. I went to samsungs site to get drivers and all it offers me is stupid Kies... soo........ I'm SOL I guess.

If you installed the "universal drivers" when you installed Kies, that may be the problem. I think that option said "recommended: no".

I'm going to run it again and find where that option is.

Edit: It's the "Unified Driver Installer". That option should be unchecked. I also unchecked the "Video Conversion Codec" and "Kies Air Message".

The install process also places "Samsung USB Driver for Mobile Phones.exe" under Program Files\Samsung\Kies\USB Driver.

If you'll message me your e-mail address, I'll send you that file. (8mb).
 
I actually uninstalled Kies and had more success. Kies was messing up my connection to my flash drives and has honestly done nothing but give me headaches.

Why samsung doesn't allow you to install drivers without their garbage program is beyond me, but this marks down most likely the last Samsung product I'll ever buy.
 
I disabled Keis out of the box. I plug in the usb cable to my computer and my computer recognizes the tablet and I can copy to the tablet or to the sd card. Never had any issues with file transfers.
 
Whelp i've tried everything. No luck. I'm kinda just stuck with it not working. In a few weeks i'm getting a new external hard drive, so I'm going to back up the files I feel like I need and probably just do a full re-install of Windows 7 and hope that fixes it.

I appreciate jwither's help but those drivers were already installed. Something I did at some point cause some problem that this connection has these issues. Oh well.
 
My suggestion is; get a micro sd card reader and a micro sd card, transfer files to it, and plug it into your tab. This is what I do...this or Dropbox, I never connect my tab to my pc
 
My suggestion is; get a micro sd card reader and a micro sd card, transfer files to it, and plug it into your tab. This is what I do...this or Dropbox, I never connect my tab to my pc

+1
I totally agree!

From everything that I've read about direct usb conections of mobile devices to a pc, it's not worth the headache!

The time you've spent messing around each time, you could have been using a otg adapter, and flash drive.
 
Hmmm, I do not seem to have those problems connecting mobile devices to the PC, of course I'm using Linux and it all just works! :)
 
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