[Dxbase] W10 and Prolific devices

Sat Oct 31 19:11:27 EDT 2015

I copied this from the Microsoft website. A driver rollback may fix the problem with the old prolific devices.
73 Tom, N4TL
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/prolific-usb-to-serial-comm-port-windows-10/0a4f8e48-7135-4434-9d10-349c9ce87fcf?auth=1
There is lot's of people reporting problems with W10 and Prolific devices (based on popular PL2303 adapter).
Myself, I've the same problems with scrolling LED Badges, and USB to COM dongles. All this devices use a PL2303 to provide a connection to an USB port, but inside, they are RS232-like interface build (and appear as a COM port in your operating system). When you plug the device into USB, it is well recognized by W10 and it try to load the Prolific driver. This work fine, but looking at the configuration panel, you will then notice that there is anerror code 10 and the driver is not working properly.Of course, you can try to manually update the driver at Prolific site:Download drivers from Prolific siteBut, look carefully on this page and you will read an important notice in RED : Windows 8/8.1/10 are NOT supported in PL-2303HXA and PL-2303XEOL (End Of Life) chip versions.This is clear: if your device is using an old chip version of PL2303, the drivers not works with W10 (and W8).As many people, you probably upgrade directly from W7 to W10, and sure, don't know that this problem was already present with W8. It's a shame from Prolific to not support this devices, because they are still used (my LED badges are less than a year old, and use EOL PL-2303 HX). Prolific's guys are fun when they said : "Prolific recommends to usePL-2303HXD (HX Rev D) or PL2303TA chip." .  Hey, but I can't do that myself !!!I don't want to send my devices to trash because they are too old (less than a year !) to be supported by W10.
May be, a solution will be to use the old W7 drivers version into W10. Not tested... I will try... 8 people found this helpful 
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 TH ThierryDAVROUX replied on After testing... FOUND THE SOLUTION !Indeed, when installing W10, the device driver for PL-2303 is the latest version. You can check it, using the configuration panel: watch the COM and LPT section, you should have the "Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm (COM X)". Click on properties, and get the details:the version driver (ser2pl.sys or ser2pl64.sys) should be something like 3.6.78.350but this one doesn't work anymore with old PL-2303 hardware.
Sometimes, installing the latest version of drivers solve the problem, but in this case, this is the opposite.
The latest version doesn't work anymore with old hardware, and you need to downgrade the driver.
If you have previously used the PL-2303 (with W7) and upgrade to W10, it's simple because the previous versions of the drivers are still on your computer. To downgrade, use the configuration panel, choose COM and LPT and right click: the first choice should be "update driver" (or something similar: sorry, but I've the French version, and hope my translation is understandable).  On the next windows, choose the second option "Look for a driver on my computer". Another windows appear, and select the bottom option: "choose from a list on my computer". You should now have a list showing all versions of the driver available. By example:- Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port Version: 3.3.3.114- Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port Version: 3.4.48.272- Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port Version: 3.6.78.350You should select the old 3.3 (from 2009).Later version, like 3.4 or 3.6 report error code 10.I have tried with 3.3.2.102 and 3.3.3.114 and both works with old PL-2303 HXA/X hardware.
If you don't have the old versions of drivers, you can tried to install them from the minidisc provided with your product. On mine, I have two programs (32 and 64 bits) called "PL-2303 WIN7 Driver Installer.exe". Launch this program, it will install the driver. But, as soon as you plug the device on USB port, you W10 will revert to the latest version (3.6). If you watch the configuration panel, you will see the COM port coming OK, but then switch off because of error 10. It don't care, because the old version is now available in the list, and you can proceed as mentioned above. Once manually set, the device driver remain in the 3.3 release.Tested on W10 family and pro, 32/64 bits.
The solution for old PL-2303 HXA/X : use a driver release older than 3.4.Edit: The procedure above works, but only temporary. Each time you turn your computer off, the latest driver is reloaded due to windows auto-update (or if you unplug and plug again the device into USB port).
To avoid that, a recent turnaround exist and has been published by Microsoft. It's a tool namedwushowhide.diagcab ("Show and Hide Update"). It allow to inhibit the auto-update for a particular program or driver (Prolific in our case).
For more information and where to download this tool, take a look at this article :KB3073930I have tested it and it work fine. The only problem with it, is that, it reload the latest driver when you plug the device on a never used USB port. So, if you change place of connection, you should manually set the driver to 3.3, but you have to do that only the first time you used this port. Next time, the driver remain to 3.3 and never upgrade to 3.6. 18 people found this helpful