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Cundy66's avatar
Cundy66
Copper Contributor
Nov 15, 2021
Solved

PL2303 issues (Prolific USB to Serial Drivers) Win 11

I have come across an issue that I don't if anyone has come across and found a fix?   I have a few handheld radios that I need to update the frequencies and when I connect to the USB, it fails to c...
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  • ejohanson's avatar
    ejohanson
    Nov 16, 2021

    I tried the older driver available here:
    http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/ShowProduct.aspx?p_id=223&pcid=126
    And this seemed to work for Windows 11. Weird that an old driver works better than the latest one.

    I have the PL-2303 TA chipset.

chrullrich's avatar
chrullrich
Copper Contributor
Nov 22, 2021

There is a working driver at http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/ShowProduct.aspx?p_id=225&pcid=41, a bit down the page listed as "DCHU (for PC Vendors)". Getting it installed is a bit tricky, it seems. What I did is this:

First install the downloaded driver by unpacking the zip file and "pnputil /add-driver *.inf /subdirs /install" (the /install is probably not necessary) from the extracted "Win11_DCHU" directory. It will add the two driver packages to the driver store and tell you what oemXY.inf files it has assigned to them.

Then "pnputil /enum-drivers", and in the output look for Prolific drivers other than the ones from the previous step. I had only one other entry, a "ser2pl.inf" version "09/16/2021 3.8.40.0".

Disconnect the device, and "pnputil /delete-driver oemXY.inf" with the INF file you located in the previous step.

Connect the device again, and it should work, at least, it does for me. The problem is probably that the non-working driver is the newest (September 2021 vs. July for the ones from the download page) and so Windows prefers it over them.

averyfreeman's avatar
averyfreeman
Copper Contributor
Dec 10, 2021
I just uninstalled it from device manager while it was plugged in,
unplugged it from USB port,
installed the 1.12 version of the installer (3.6.81.357 driver) from http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/ShowProduct.aspx?p_id=223&pcid=126.
It prompted me to reboot, I did.
After login, plugged in serial port to USB drive, opened device manager
Device reports COM3, no warning message anymore -
Connected to serial of HPE switch 9600 8n1 through Putty right now without issue
  • ORIGOArni's avatar
    ORIGOArni
    Copper Contributor
    Feb 24, 2022

    This solution worked for me, thank you averyfreeman 

    Have an older receipt printer connected with serial.
    In addition to getting things to work I had to uninstall the printer (Generic text only) driver as that one is also messed up by Win11 update.
    Prolific driver Ver. 3.6.81.357 date 4. Sep 2015 and
    Generic printer driver 10.0.22000.1 date 21. Jun 2006

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