Fix SPAPI_E_LINE_NOT_FOUND (0x800F0102) During Driver Install

You're trying to install a driver—maybe a printer, a USB device, or a graphics card—and Windows throws SPAPI_E_LINE_NOT_FOUND (0x800F0102). The message says "The required line was not found in the INF." This usually pops up during a manual driver update via Device Manager or when running an installer that pulls a driver from a cab file.

The culprit is almost always a broken INF file. Either the driver package was corrupted during download, or Windows is pointing to an INF that's meant for a different version of the device. Sometimes it's a leftover INF from a previous install that got half-removed. In any case, the INF is missing a line that Windows expects to see—like a DDInstall section or a specific CopyFiles directive.

Don't bother hunting for the missing line in the INF. That's a rabbit hole. The fix is to get a clean driver package and start over. Here's how.

1. Uninstall the old driver. Open Device Manager, find the device with the yellow exclamation mark, right-click and choose Uninstall device. If you see a checkbox for "Delete the driver software for this device," check it. This removes the stale INF from the driver store.
2. Clean out leftover INF files. Open a command prompt as Administrator and run:

   pnputil /enum-drivers

   Look for any drivers that might correspond to your device. If you spot them, note the published name (like oem42.inf) and delete them with:

   pnputil /delete-driver oem42.inf /force

   Only delete the ones that match the device you're fixing. Don't go trigger-happy or you might break something else.
3. Download a fresh driver package. Go to the manufacturer's website and grab the latest driver. Not the beta, not the one from Windows Update. Get the full package, not a mini installer if possible.
4. Extract the package if it's a self-extracting archive. Right-click and choose "Extract All" or run it and point it to a folder like C:\drivers\device.
5. Manually install the driver. Open Device Manager, right-click your device, and choose Update driver > Browse my computer for drivers > Let me pick from a list > Have Disk. Point it to the extracted INF file. Do NOT use the "Search automatically" option—it often grabs the same broken INF from the store.
6. If it still fails, check the INF file itself for obvious issues. Open it in Notepad and search for [Version] and [Manufacturer] sections. Make sure the file isn't zero bytes and that it has the right lines. Sometimes a download gets corrupted halfway—re-download and compare file size.

After you've done a clean install, restart the PC. Windows will re-enumerate the device and should pick up the new driver without throwing the error.

Still failing?

If you've cleaned the driver store and reinstalled with a fresh INF, and you're still seeing 0x800F0102, then the issue is likely the INF itself is not compatible with your Windows version. For example, a driver written for Windows 7 might fail on Windows 11 if it uses obsolete INF directives. Check the INF's LayoutFile or CatalogFile—if it references files that don't exist, that's your problem.

Another thing to try is using Windows Update to see if a driver is available there. Go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and check for optional updates. Sometimes Microsoft has a signed driver that works even when the manufacturer's doesn't.

If this is a custom or legacy device, you might need to contact the manufacturer for a driver that's been updated for your OS version. There's no way around it—if the INF is bad, no amount of tweaking will fix it.

One more thing: check the Device Manager details for the hardware ID. Make sure you're downloading the driver for the exact model. I've lost count of how many times someone grabs a driver for a slightly different revision and gets this exact error because the INF doesn't have a matching [Models] section.

Good luck. This one's annoying, but it's fixable.