How to Rename Hardware Components in Windows Device Manager

By default, there is not a way to rename your hardware from device manager itself but there is a workaround if you really want to change the name of hardware devices to make things easier to find and troubleshoot. All you need is the driver key for the particular hardware item, and you can change its name in the Windows registry.

A writeup of the process can be found here.

Here is the registry location you need to search for the key from.
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum

Here is the string value you need to add if you don't have a friendly name value for that hardware in the registry.
FriendlyName
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[montser_rat]

Thank you so much for sharing this informative video. It was very well done and concise. My sister and I both bought ourselves the same type of headphones and we needed a way to distinguish them when we share my laptop. May your pillow stay cold and you have a wonderful day!

[NarcosNeedSleep]

You're an angel! I panicked when I got into Enum and FriendlyName wasn't there. I had the video paused, so I searched the comments to see if anyone else had that problem. Of course, you already mentioned it in the description and the video covered it. Thank you so much for sharing this!

Now I'll just need to figure out which of the rest of my devices are which, so I can label them. I wonder if I'll have to manually uninstall and reinstall each thing or if you have a video on figuring that out.

[RaidenGamesStudioOfficial]

Yes finally I can have a 7090 Super Ti Super 100gb Ram GPU!! Thanks!

[abteilungsleiterderliebe]

I changed my Gpu from AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT to AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Femboy Edition thank you very much!!!

[GabrieloTomorrow]

Nice!
This is really useful to keep everything organized when you have many devices and it can get confusing.
There are some downsides that are worth mentioning though:

This method allows you to rename devices in Device Manager, but if you go to the regular "Settings" window, you will find that the device still displays the exact same name as before, so you would always have to go to Device Manager in order to see the name that you have given to it.
And the other downside is that if you remove a device and pair it again, then you will have to rename the device once again by repeating the whole process.

That being said, this is still very good.
Thanks for sharing. 👍

[dynamoz]

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

[paulct]

Great stuff! Idiotic that Msoft does not let you right click on the name right in dev manager!

[robertcarbonell]

Amazing Video and thanks for sharing. I had to rename my two 27 inch Sceptre monitors to be able to swithc below audio sounds.

[DrProfessorBello]

Thanks man. Works great, really good to know.

[roloep]

It just goes back to what it was after a restart for me.

[unitedsoulwarriorsfreedom]

Didnt work, reset computer and its still showing the old value in apps, in device manager its changed but not in apps

[Siveer-dy]

i renamed my gpu as "NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4090"

[numa]

amazing. great thanks. been looking for this

[RSLSVR]

The old name still appears in the sound control panel, what can I do?

[GoldenbanjoDJ]

Nice one mate 'Generic PnP Monitor' drives me fuckin crazy lol

[robertcarbonell]

Thanks for posting this video. I have two monitors with the same name and both have speakers built in. One of them, lets say the one on the Left is connected to my speakers via 3.5 wire. I managed to change my monitor names, now when I click on the sound icon next to the clock I still see Sceptre F27 for both monitors. FYI I even restarted the computer and I still see Sceptre F27

[Dark_Jaguar]

Nice concise instructions, but the problem is that the new name keeps reverting over and over for the sound devices I have.

[tuaisdurable]

is it really that uncommon to have two of the same monitor?? you should be able to edit it right there in properties. will the changes reflect in settings dialogue boxes?

[Pablo-iojs]

Please help me!

I have a device "Generic USB Joystick ".
How can I make it so that in the games and in "Devices and printers" it says my personalized name, and does not say the name "Generic USB Joystick"?
Thank you very much!

[biogons]

Thanks for the description of the procedure, but in my case I must change the name with which the program that uses the device finds it. Because, without knowing why, the USB device has changed its name and now it cannot be found. And I don't remember how it appeared before in Device Manager.