The present invention provides Plug and Play (PnP) functionality for devices that are not supported by an operating system. In response to the installation of an unsupported device, the operating system sends the event to a device manager application residing in user mode code. Upon receiving the event, the device manager application automatically installs the supporting configuration entries and software. After the device is installed, the device is accessible from an application without requiring any programming changes. Events are exposed to the application through a through a common control library (CCL). The library is directed at providing a generic interface for accessing the devices. Using the CCL the registered applications may receive events associated with the device.