Operation of the USB2COM adapter in Windows 7. What and how?

Question

Iron

Recently, laptop manufacturers have thrown out the COM port from most of their devices, which, by necessity, is comparable to the laptop itself. Due to the nature of the activity, it is necessary to “fill in” various PLCs through it, and connect to other devices that support the RS-232 standard. So, back to the core of the problem. On all previous laptops and laptops of colleagues with Windows XP installed, none of the USB2COM adapters (tested by 4 manufacturers - MOXA, Phoenix Contact, Defender, NoNAME) had any problems with their work. There were also no problems with the real COM port.
Now, on more “perfect” laptops, there is neither a COM port nor the ability to install a full-fledged Windows XP, and it was not possible to achieve correct operation from any USB2COM adapter.
Maybe someone faced such a problem and already solved it?

Answer 1

The Prolific USB to Serial Adapter (PL2303) works fine and the driver for Win7 is even found in the standard Windows driver finder.

Answer 2

If there is a desire to solder, then there is a good mikruha FT232R . It can play the role of not only RS232, but also RS422 and RS485 adapters. I use it on UART in all my developments on controllers where USB is needed. On all win-systems on which it was tested, it worked perfectly without data loss. Issue price ~$5. Available in 28-Lead SSOP and QFN-32 cases. With strapping, it occupies an area of ​​​​a 5-kopeck coin, that is, it can also be built inside a beech tree. In addition, you can even pass it off as any of your devices using the config tool.

Answer 3

The problem is not in installing the driver, but in the fact that the device does not work correctly - that is, on Windows 7 with the same settings with Windows XP, for example, it is impossible to contact any PLC.

Answer 4

And still there are problems with win7 x64

Answer 5

If there is a problem, I check the connection with the device on the other end of the port manually.
I run Putty on the desired com port (I used HyperTerminal before, but it was thrown out of Windows)
There should be no problems with the drivers. On my Win7x64, there are currently two ports on USB2RS232 (prolific) adapters, two ports on a PCI expansion card, and two more virtual ports on attached controllers, there's an FDTI chip like that. Everything rustles.
Also pay attention to the settings of the appeared virtual port in the device manager'e.
Maybe the software itself is very old:
Some do not correctly initialize the port parameters, are buggy for Overlapped (asynchronous) calls.
Another well-known jamb when completely old-school software does not understand COM4 anymore
Unlikely, but it could be a permissions issue or UAC is better Run As Administrator