Python USB control on Windows 7?

[Duncan Booth]

Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 6:28 PM, Tim Roberts <timr at probo.com> wrote:
>> Duncan Booth <duncan.booth at invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>In this year's Christmas Raffle at work I won a 'party-in-a-box'
>>>including USB fairy lights.
>>>
>>>They sit boringly on all the time, so does anyone know if I can
>>>toggle the power easily from a script? My work PC is running Win7.
>>
>> Not easily, no.  It's not really a USB device -- I'm betting it
>> doesn't even enumerate.  It's just sucking power from the USB wires. 
>> There's nothing to control.
Yes, I understand that, I was wondering whether the power could be toggled.
> 
> Hmm. Can you control whether a particular port is on or off? (I have
> no idea what's possible with the underlying API, much less whether
> it's exposed.) It should in theory be possible - disable the
> appropriate USB port and the device loses power.
> 
So far as I can tell Windows doesn't let you turn the ports on and off. I 
found some suggestion that by connecting it to a powered hub it may be 
possible to toggle the hub power on and off but that many hubs don't bother 
implementing the functionality.

Thanks anyway.
-- 
Duncan Booth http://kupuguy.blogspot.com