A modern USB topology explorer for Windows, written in Rust. It covers the
feature set of Uwe Sieber's USB Device Tree Viewer (USBTreeView), wrapped in
a fast, interactive UI and extended with diagnostics, snapshots and
reporting. The name is a working title and is defined in one place:
APP_NAME in src/app/mod.rs.
| Map view | USB guide – speed comparison |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Guide – companion ports | Guide – versions & names decoder |
 |
 |
All screenshots show the built-in demo data (USB_Atlas --demo).
Topology (USBTreeView parity)
- Host controllers → root hubs → hubs → ports → devices, including empty ports, USB 3 companion ports (highlighted together), Type-C and internal ports
- Optional Windows child devices (composite functions, disks, COM, HID …) with drive letters and COM port names shown inline
- Connection status per port (over-current, failed enumeration …), speed, address, pipes
- Full descriptor decoding: device, configuration, IAD, interface, endpoint, SuperSpeed(Plus) companions, HID, Audio, Video (UVC), CDC, DFU, OTG, BOS and device capabilities (USB 2.0 ext, SuperSpeed, SS+, Container ID, WebUSB, MS OS 2.0, Billboard), hub descriptors, device qualifier, all string descriptors in all languages
- Device Manager information: IDs, driver (provider/version/date/INF), service, class, location paths, container ID, filters, problem codes
- Host controller PCI IDs and flavor via
IOCTL_USB_USER_REQUEST - Actions: safely remove (with veto reason), restart device, enable / disable, cycle port, open device properties, open drive, restart as administrator
- Auto-refresh on device change (
CM_Register_Notification), arrival glow and removal "ghost" rows, jump to new devices - Text reports (
--report), command-line export, copy per node / whole tree
Beyond USBTreeView
- Learn view (Ctrl+3): an illustrated USB guide in 13 chapters – basics (how USB works, connectors, port colors, power), a decoder for the naming scheme (USB 3.0 = 3.1 Gen 1 = 3.2 Gen 1 = USB 5Gbps …), an animated speed graph (log/linear) and file-copy race, an interactive companion-port diagram, advanced topics (enumeration, transfer types, encoding, link power, Type-C/PD/USB4, troubleshooting) and a personalized "Your computer" page
- Map view (Ctrl+2): a full-width, animated graph of the physical topology. Every USB 3 socket is one card showing both of its lanes (the USB 2 port and its SuperSpeed "companion"), USB 3 hubs appear as one hub with two links, and links flow at a pace and thickness matching their speed. Hover to trace a path, click for an inspector, double-click to open details; a built-in explainer covers companion ports
- Accurate "port max": speeds are judged per physical socket (all lanes), plus the slowest upstream hub link, so a USB 3 device that fell back to the USB 2 lane is reported as "could reach 5 Gbit/s here" with the likely cause
- Physical sockets tree mode: optionally merge companion ports and hub halves in the tree, too
- Insights: explains why a device is slow (SuperSpeed device on a USB 2 cable or port), power budget overruns, problem codes in plain English, descriptor spec violations, BadUSB-style warnings (keyboard + storage/network)
- Interactive hex view: hover a decoded field to highlight its bytes, or hover a byte to see which field it belongs to
- Link ladder showing actual speed vs. device capability vs. port maximum
- Port map for every hub, with a bus-power budget bar
- Dashboard for the whole machine (device counts, speed distribution, pins)
- Command palette (Ctrl+K): fuzzy-jump to any device or run any command
- Search and quick filters (Problems, USB 3, Storage, Input) with match highlighting
- Activity timeline of arrivals, removals and new problems, with timestamps
- Snapshots: save / open JSON, drag-and-drop to open, compare a snapshot against the live system to see what changed
- HTML report export (self-contained, light/dark aware)
- Nicknames for devices (stored per VID:PID:serial) and pinned favorites
- Light / dark / system theme with five accent colors, compact mode, always-on-top, keyboard-driven navigation throughout
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| F5 / Ctrl+R | Refresh |
| Ctrl+1 / 2 / 3 | Tree / Map / Learn view |
| F, +, − (Map) | Fit, zoom in, zoom out |
| Ctrl+K / Ctrl+P | Command palette |
| Ctrl+F | Search |
| ↑ ↓ ← → Home End PgUp PgDn | Navigate the tree |
| F2 | Rename (nickname) |
| Ctrl+C | Copy selected node's report |
| Ctrl+Shift+C | Copy full report |
| Ctrl+S / Ctrl+O | Save / open snapshot |
| Ctrl+E | Export HTML report |
| Ctrl+J | Activity & insights panel |
| Ctrl+Shift+L | Toggle light / dark |
| Ctrl+, | Settings |
USB_Atlas [snapshot.json] open the GUI (optionally on a saved snapshot)
USB_Atlas --demo GUI with built-in demo data
USB_Atlas --report [file] text report (stdout if no file)
USB_Atlas --html <file> HTML report
USB_Atlas --json [file] JSON snapshot
USB_Atlas --no-hex omit hex dumps from reports
USB_Atlas --view <tree|map|learn> start in a specific view
USB_Atlas --lesson <name> open a guide chapter (e.g. names, speeds, companion)
Grab USB_Atlas.exe from the latest release.
It is a single portable file – no installer, no runtime. Windows 10/11 (x64).
Windows SmartScreen may warn about an unrecognized app because the binary isn't code-signed; choose More info → Run anyway, or build it yourself.
Requires Rust 1.92+ with the MSVC toolchain on Windows.
cargo build --release # target/release/USB_Atlas.exe (single file, no installer)
cargo test # descriptor decoding, tree, diff, insights, reports
cargo test readme_screenshots -- --ignored # re-render docs/screenshots offscreen
Most information is available as a standard user. Restart, enable/disable and cycle port need administrator rights ("Restart as administrator" in the menu).
| Path | Purpose |
|---|---|
src/descriptors/ |
Pure, tested USB descriptor decoders (field offsets for the hex view) |
src/model.rs |
Serializable topology model = snapshot file format |
src/platform/win/ |
Win32: enumeration (usbview algorithm), devnodes, actions, notifications |
src/physical.rs |
Companion-port grouping into sockets, hub-half merging, link limits |
src/tree.rs |
Flattening into display nodes with stable ids, snapshot diffing |
src/insights.rs |
Diagnostics heuristics |
src/details.rs |
Detail sections shared by the UI, text and HTML reports |
src/export.rs |
HTML report |
src/app/ |
egui UI: theme, tree, detail pane, hex view, palette, toasts |
- Inspired by USB Device Tree Viewer by Uwe Sieber
and Microsoft's
usbviewsample. - Vendor/product names from the linux-usb.org usb.ids database (GPL-2.0-or-later or BSD-3-Clause), embedded at build time.
- Icons: Phosphor via
egui-phosphor.
MIT © kaislate – see LICENSE. The bundled assets/usb.ids
database keeps its own license (GPL-2.0-or-later or BSD-3-Clause).