USB Keyboard works in BIOS but not in Windows 2000 unless...

Did your keyboard specifically come with a driver? If you are getting the hidserv.exe message, it appears Windows is trying to load a driver (which apparently isn't working during the first registry load) and when you unplug it/plug it back in, the keyboard is using the registry to use a specific driver for the keyboard. Either you need to reinstall the keyboard driver (if you have one) or something in your startup is killing the process. If you don't have a keyboard driver, try removing everything from your startup and adding the apps back in until you find the culprit process that is killing it or change the order of the startup applications (it could be a timing issue).

I have a similar problem, although without any error messages.
I use a Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 700 that has a shared USB Receiver for mouse & keyboard. Mouse always works, but Windows randomly fails to detect keyboard.
Keyboard always works in BIOS and always works when booting into Linux on same machine. Keyboard batteries are good, keyboard-to-receiver distance OK. Even when no text appears on screen in Windows, the Receiver LED flashes in sync with keys being pressed.
After having shut system down and removed AC power altogether then rebooting some time later having changed nothing in the meantime, keyboard may or may not work when Windows loads.
If keyboard doesn't work, the fix is to unplug & replug the receiver into the same or any USB port.
Your thought, pkellmey, that the keyboard might be using the registry to load a specific driver seems logical to me under the above circumstances, hence this "reply" seeking further info...
I use the drivers built into Win2k for mouse & keyboard and have tried reloading these with no improvement. I have had no luck in googling for a "stand-alone" driver.
Even when the keyboard isn't working after a reboot, Device Manager shows all drivers OK.
I have removed all other devices from all USB sockets except my printer (whether this is switched on or switched off at time of boot makes no difference to the keyboard behaviour).
You suggest "try removing everything from your startup and adding the apps back in until you find the culprit process that is killing it or change the order of the startup applications (it could be a timing issue)".
- Do you mean I should disable all items listed on the Startup tab in Msconfig? If I do this, will they be retained in the list although unchecked after the next and subsequent boots or they be lost and have to be added back in manually?
- How can I change the order in which applications start up?

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Win2K Pro, V5.0.2195 Bld 2195, SP4 + all updates
AMD Athlon 1.8GHz processor with Cool'n'Quiet
Award Modular BIOS V6.00PG
ATI Radeon 9550 graphics card (128MB RAM)
System Memory 1GB RAM
Firewall ZoneAlarm Pro V7.0.337.000
Kaspersky AV V6.0.2.614
Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird, both V2.0.0

Sorry for the very late reply!

As this keyboard has multimedia features I installed a patch I found on the HP website and that resolved this issue.

So there you have it, not a keyboard driver issue as such but because the keyboard had extra features not having that driver/software took out the basic functionality.