I'm evaluating VirtualHere to allow communication/control between USB-serial instruments physically connected to a host computer and Hyper-V virtual machines on the host. I'm using VH server 4.8.7 on the host, and VH client 5.9.8 on the VM. Standard USB controlled devices show up correctly in the client when connected and communication works. However, I'm having issues with serial over USB devices. The VM has Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 installed. I have two serial devices that when plugged in, connect to COM6 and COM7 on the host. Initially, in the VirtualHere client, I saw only FT232R USB UART, and this would show up under the VM device manager as well with an error (yellow triangle). I allowed windows to install the driver from Windows Update in the VM device manager, and now when plugging in both of those devices, I see (COM3,COM3) FT232R USB UART in the VirtualHere client, and only COM3 shows up in the VM device manager. I can communicate with the host COM6 instrument sometimes (using COM3 in the control software on the VM), but my expectation was that both plugged in devices should be on different COM ports (ideally with the same numbers as on the host to allow easier identification). Is there something that I'm doing wrong or am missing? I'm currently using the trial version of VH for this evaluation. Thanks.
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The FT232R only has 1 com port. Are you sure you are using that chip?
Correction: the other device…
Correction: the other device that was plugged in was a USB-serial device but it was correctly recognized as a USB device in the VirtualHere client, I missed it at the bottom of the list when I was going back and forth plugging things in. So it seems the serial instrument on COM6 is connecting, and showing up as (COM3,COM3) FT232R USB UART in the VirtualHere client. I actually do not see that FTDI chip in the host device manager; but that's what shows up in VirtualHere. I don't see any USB Serial converter under USB controllers on the host, just a bunch of generic USB hubs and the intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller. Is there a way to determine if I'm using the correct driver to enable multiple COM ports should they need to be used? Unfortunately I don't have any additional serial devices that aren't recognized as USB to test, other than this one instrument that I have to manually add as an RS232 device in the control software (it is not recognized as a USB connected device).
Also is it normal for the COM port to be different on VM and host?
I think I may have figured…
I think I may have figured things out for the most part. The FTDI chip being recognized by VirtualHere was from the instrument itself, the FTDI drivers were installed under the COM port on the host. I was thinking that the FT232R USB UART was a single interface that connects multiple instruments (multiple COM ports), not a representation of a single COM port. I made this assumption after seeing (COM3, COM3); and now (COM3, COM3, COM3) in the Virtual Here client. I was able to find the most recent supported FTDI driver for the VM windows version, and it seems to be working correctly so far. Not understanding the multiple COM listings and COM port doesn't match the host (would be nice if, but it works nonetheless), but so far everything else seems to be working decently enough.
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It shouldnt show COM3 twice there, so that seems like a bug but its just a display bug.