PL2303 issues (Prolific USB to Serial Drivers) Win 11

chrullrich 

Excellent advice. I turned your instructions into a PowerShell snippet with makes this procedure pretty quick. Just set the path to the driver files.
Attached is a screenshot of my Device Manager with 2 programming cables plugged in. (1 Yaesu, 1 Baofeng).

# Set the current location to the specified directory
Set-Location 'C:\ProlificDrivers\PL2303D_DCHU_Win11_21H2_v3.9.0.2_20210728_ML_Driver'

# Create a log file with the current date in the filename
$outfile = "install_$(Get-Date -Format yyyyMMdd).log"

# Install the driver using pnputil.exe and save the output to the log file
$InstallResult = pnputil.exe /add-driver *.inf /subdirs /install
$InstallResult | Out-File $outfile -Append -Encoding utf8 -Force

# Extract the OEM name from the install result
[string]$Published = $InstallResult -match 'publish'
$OEMIndex = $Published.IndexOf('oem')
[string]$OEMName = $Published.Substring($OEMIndex, ($Published.Length - ($OEMIndex)) )

# Get a list of other installed drivers
$otherDrivers = pnputil.exe /enum-drivers

# Create an array to store the names of drivers that need to be deleted
[System.Collections.ArrayList]$badDrivers = @()

# Iterate through each line of the otherDrivers output
ForEach ($Line in $otherDrivers) {
    if ($Line -match "Published Name") {
        $PublishedName = @($Line -split 'Published Name:     ')[1]
    }

    # Check if the line contains "prolific" and the PublishedName is not the same as the OEMName
    if ($Line -match "prolific" -AND ($PublishedName -ne $OEMName)) {
        $badDrivers.Add($PublishedName)
    }
}

# Create a message with the names of the drivers to be deleted
$Msg = @"
Driver to delete: 
$($badDrivers | Out-String )
"@ 

# Append the message to the log file and display it in the console with green color
$Msg | Out-File $outfile -Append -Encoding utf8 -Force
Write-Host $Msg -ForegroundColor Green

# Attempt to delete the bad drivers
try {
    ForEach ($Name in $badDrivers) {
        $attempt = pnputil /delete-driver $Name

        # If the deletion attempt fails, throw an exception
        If ($attempt -match 'failed') {
            throw $attempt
        }

        # If the deletion is successful, update the message and append it to the log file
        $Msg = "Driver deleted successfully."
        $Msg | Out-File $outfile -Append -Encoding utf8 -Force
        Write-Host $Msg -ForegroundColor Green
    }
}
catch {
    # If an exception is caught, update the message with the error and append it to the log file
    $Msg = "Failed to delete driver. Please delete manually.`nError: $_"
    $Msg | Out-File $outfile -Append -Encoding utf8 -Force
    Write-Host $Msg -ForegroundColor Yellow
}

chrullrich - The webpage you linked no longer has a driver download listed. It appears all downloads have been scrubbed from the site since the PL2303TA driver does not support Windows 11.

chrullrich Yes is there a way from the new prolific driver from reinstalling itself at every update?  Do you know of a way that it doesnt keep going to the new PL driver?

chrullrich  Thank you, this worked for me also. But won't Windows update put the newer driver back again? Can I prevent that from happening?