After a recent update, Apple products like MagSafe wireless charger and Airpods are no longer charging when connected to a Windows laptop’s USB C Port. However, this can be resolved by disabling a HID device in device manager and charging will start working again.

Disable HID device in Device manager

1. Open Devices and Printers in control panel (For Windows 11, open Settings, under Bluetooth & devices click “View more devices” and then scroll down and click “More devices and printers”)

2. Right click Apple MagSafe Charger(Or Airpod) and open properties

3. Go to Hardware tab

4. Select HID-compatible-vendor-defined device (1st one worked for me)

5. Click Properties

6. Click Change settings (if applicable)

7. Go to Driver tab and Disable the device.

8. Unplug and re-plug the MagSafe/Airpod

MagSafe charger and AirPods should start charging again now.

Background

Apple MagSafe did work with windows before Microsoft broke it sometime in late 2021. After the update, even completely reinstalling the OS won’t fix this issue. Only option is to use the workaround.

Interestingly this issue affects only older laptop and in my case it was a Dell with 7th gen Intel i5. I got a new laptop recently with Windows 11 and Apple MagSafe is working without the workaround even though it still gives error “USB device not recognized”. So this issue is specific to a model or older generation USB controllers. Many users have posted about this in Microsoft forums and reddit, but Microsoft is yet to fix this even after 1.5 years.

The idea behind the workaround is the Apple devices need only power from the laptop and doesn’t need the drivers to be working. For some reason Windows is disabling power delivery to the device. This was apparent when the charging was working during computer boot time and gets cut off as soon as login screen appears. So the idea of workaround was to stop Windows from find out about the device by disabling it. Now windows don’t see the device and power delivery continues.