Trouble with Virtual Com Ports Resolved

[troynm]

My Microbit RRC client was working fine yesterday. Today it couldn't locate any com ports. I played with it for quite a while and finally downloaded a virtual serial port driver from http://www.eltima.com/products/vspdxp/ and it works fine. The only trouble is it's a 14 day demo and the drivers are $99 USD. I'm using a Windows 8.1 laptop and from what I can tell from reading on the internet Windows 8 has a difficult time with virtual com ports.

Any other suggestions for virtual com port drivers that are cheaper? The FabulaTech drivers from Microbit don't always seem to do the job with Windows 8.

[Jan (Microbit)]

What we have seen happening from time to time in Win 8/8.1 is that the FabulaTech COM ports are not displayed in Windows's Device Manager, but the ports are still there and working. The Setup Manager is often able to "see them" when that happens. Could that be the case for you?

[troynm]

That is correct. They didn't show up in the Micro client or device manager even when it was working and they didn't show when it was working. It makes it difficult to troubleshoot. Using the drivers I down loaded they show up everywhere and the micro client works fine.

Any ideas?

[troynm]

Well now when the RRC client starts it says my trial is over. I thought it was good for 30 days but I only got 3.

[troynm]

Ok, I got it working. It apparently did not like me switching from a wireless to a wired connection. I switched back to wireless and it works fine now.

[troynm]

Ok, I think I have it working fine now. I installed RRC Micro using Wi-Fi and it worked fine. Somewhere along the line I installed an Ethernet adapter and connected to a wired network connection and that is when my troubles started. I uninstalled the other virtual com port drivers, disconnected the Ethernet adapter all is well. The Microbit virtual drivers show up in Device Manager now.

I'm going to purchase the Micro PC client now that I have it all working, but another question is should I have both the wired network adapter and Wi-Fi connected when I install the client or use the Wi-Fi only? I imagine I will use Wi-Fi most of the time. One of the errors I received during my troubleshooting phase was that RRC would say the client is only registered to the Wi-Fi connection and would not work with the Ethernet adapter.

Thanks,
Tom
W5GV