Serial ports

I'm very new to the Apple world of MacBooks
I brought the macpro m1 not realising it wouldn't support windows because of the new chip, after getting a eagerly await email I installed it all tonight but I don't seem to be able to get any com ports up, on my windows
Machine I just plugged the usb- serial com adapter in and it was seen! I have tried downloading a generic driver but still no cigar
Is this support not yet available
Or am I being a idiot with something!!
Thanks

 

Bump.
I am also interested whether someone has a virtual com port driver working.

 

Hello, could you check this KB article please?

 

I do see how this should work (and even how it might work differently than the dynamic USB host selection), but I'm having no-go.

• Apple MacBook Pro M1
• Parallels for Mac Standard build 50692
• Windows 10 for ARM build 21390
• I plug the device into my Mac (I have to use a dongle to interface USB-B plug to USB-C socket)
• I see {tty|cu}.usbserial-AK06HJ9O appear in the Mac's /dev/directory
• I add the serial port to the configuration and select this device as outlined in the article (Previously I had selected it through the dynamic USB device selection)
• Start Device Manager to look for the port. No COM or LPT ports to be seen. Refresh for New Hardware does nothing
• Select View / Drivers by Type. There is a driver under Ports (COM&LPT) called "oem7.inf (ftdiport.inf)"
• Rightclick and select Install Driver. (Or do the same through Properties)
• Nothin'

So, I'm pretty sure I'm back to the point where I need a device driver that Windows for ARM does not currently have. (The procedure in the KB article does work on the Intel side, and I am able to get my application working there, so "not a biggie.")

Mostly my bump post was to ask whether anyone had successfully recompiled the FTDI Virtual Comm Port Driver under Windows 10 for ARM yet. (Heck, even FTDI hasn't done this, although I haven't tried every single one of their Raspberry Pi drivers yet.)

Thanks again!

 

I see the same behavior as @MaestroS - in build 50692
Even though Parallels recognizes the serial device and allows me to add it to the VM config, there is no way of getting the serial port to turn up in windows. Section 4 in the KB article https://kb.parallels.com/6318 cannot be executed since there is no port shown
Has anyone succeeded connected to an FTDI serial port through MacOS?

 

Is this still an issue? I bought an M1 Mac not realizing that Parallels required an ARM version of Windows, and that I might not be able to actually use any of the software I currently utilize Parallels for, which is Motorola radio and police scanner programming software. These all require some form of Prolific of FDTI USB to Serial port adapters to be able to program the devices. My new Macbook Pro M1 Pro arrrives October 26th, and if I can confirm that I can't get x86 drivers and serial porting to function on Windows 11 ARM, I will not open the package and drive it straight to Apple Store for a full refund.

I am currently on a 16" i9 Macbook Pro, which is happy with Parallels v17 and all my ports.

Paul

 

Would it be accuragte to say then that this would render any Windows functions as mearly a form of internet enabled sandbox where I cannot attach the VM to anything other than internet data or access files on a host hard drive etc?

Paul

 

I may have to turn to coding my programming on one machine and transfering the file to a Windows machine to blow the data into the devices. I guess I could buy an old cheap Macbook Air for that...does Apple support Windows 10 32 bit on mid 201x year Macbooks for Bootcamp? I know at some point it became 64 bit only.

Paul

 

I'm in the same exact situation. Hoping to not have to return my new 14, but can't seem to find any solution for serial ports under Parallels/Windows 11.

 

Same situation here I bought an 2021 m1/max it's over 4.2k and i can't connect to any of my Crestron remotes via usb this is beyond annoying I've spent multiple days trying to figure this out. If I would of known the headache I never would of made this purchased and would of went for a MacBook from a previous year with an intel at this point I have a 4200 dollar paper wieght I'm pissed

 

I am also having the same issues, What I believe the problem to be is that there is no serenum.sys in the ARM edition of windows which appears to be a necessary component of the virtual com port emulation these FTDI devices require.

 

I contacted FTDI support and offered to test their beta ARM64 driver. At the moment it doesnt meet windows 11 driver signing requirements so to test or run it you have to temporarily disable that feature. FTDI is working on another version that should meet Windows 11 driver requirements and eliminate this burden. Here is an excerpt from the email I sent them yesterday:
>>
I can confirm that the beta driver works under Windows 11 Home ARM64 running under Parallels 17.1.0 on 2021 MacBook Pro 14" Monterey 12.0.1 using a USB C to Serial Adapter with FTDI chip. Installation was a bit tricky even after disabling driver signing in Windows 11. I found these tips for your driver install at:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...s/3bc380dc-b018-4ad2-958a-e66c438c6b94?page=2

4. insert the adapter
5. after detecting it with exclamation sign: update driver, have disc -> point to the downloaded extracted driver in ARM64\Release folder
6. After updating the bridge, launch regedit
7. Go to
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\VID_0403&PID_6001\a410f66c\Device Parameters
where VID_0403&PID_6001 you will find from Device HW ID from device properties
8. Create a new string value named PortName
9. Give it a value COM4 or any free value
10. Take out the adapter and insert it again
11. A new USBtoSerial device will appear with Excalamtion sign
12. Reinstall its driver from the same package

Those extra steps did the trick for a working driver. I tested serial communications with my Vantage whole house automation controller over COM3 and it worked.
I am looking forward to a version that doesn't require disabling Windows 11 driver signing as I use the COM ports frequently.
>>
So there is progress being made.
Kurt

 

Thanks for your very helpful instructions. I was able to get an FTDI-based USB serial port working under Windows 11 on my 14" Mac M1 Max, but I have three problems: 1) the device driver install isn't persistent across reboots, 2) I can't give the COM port the name I want, and 3) my multiport USB-to-serial adapters aren't recognized by MacOS.

I'm disabling driver signing from the Windows Startup menu (accessed via Shift-Restart). That lets me install the COM port driver, and the device works properly after that, but when I reboot the device is back to being a USB Serial Converter with the exclamation point, no doubt because the driver installation fails. I have to go through the Windows Startup Menu again to disable driver signing again. Driver signing can be disabled via an elevated Command prompt, but that requires disabling Secure Boot. Is there a way to do that in Parallels so I can more easily disable driver signing across reboots?

The COM port the name I want is COM13. I used that as the PortName in regedit, but the port name given by Windows is COM11. In fact it doesn't seem to matter what COM port name I specify in regedit -- it always assigns COM11. Properties for the device brings up the standard Properties page, not the serial port page that normally allows changing the COM port name using the Advanced button. Not a fatal problem, as I can change the port name in the application, but annoying nonetheless. When you select Properties for your serial port, do you get the COM port style Properties page?

A bigger problem is that I can't get my two 8-port USB-to-serial devices working. The Mac doesn't see the devices at all, so there's nothing to pass to Parallels Windows. It seems that the MacOS built-in FTDI driver only supports single serial port devices. Under Windows I've always used the FTDI VCP drivers to access the multiport devices, and I guess that driver creates multiple VCPs. But there doesn't seem to be a version of the VCP driver for ARM-based Macs, only for x86 and x64. Those won't work on an M1 Mac, right? Is there a beta of the VCP drivers for M1 Macs?

 

I'm happy to report that I've solved the problems listed in my last post. I now have 17 COM ports working under Windows 11 ARM on my 14" Mac M1 Max!

The biggest breakthrough was realizing that my two 8-port USB-to-RS232 hubs weren't receiving 12VDC power (Duh!) Once I corrected that, the Mac saw them and passed the 16 individual COM ports to Parallels. That means the FTDI drivers on the Mac side work with multiport hubs.

As expected, the ports showed up under USB in the Windows Device Manager with exclamation points. I loaded the FTDI beta ARM drivers by disabling driver signing checks as instructed by kduminwa. I used beta CDM v2.12.32.B3 for ARM64. Does anyone know if there's a more recent version?

The COM ports initially showed up with no port names, but by updating the device drivers a second time port names were assigned. I think it's really this -- loading the device driver twice, rather than adding the PortName field in the registry entries under Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\ -- that assigns the port names.

However, the COM ports had the wrong numbers for the software I'm using, and the port names started with COM11, rather than COM3 as they do on my desktop. Evidently, COM1-COM10 were in use. And, as I reported above the COM port names can't be changed in Properties for the devices. But when I went to change the port names, I found that none of the entries under Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\ contained port names. Where were they?

The key was finding this document published by FTDI in 2016:

https://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Do...Assigning_COM_Port_Numbers_Using_Registry.pdf

The document indicates that FTDI ports entries are found under Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\FTDIBUS\. Sure enough, each of the entries there contained a Friendly Port Name (what you see in Device Manager) and a PortName. The FTDI document also describes this important key:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\COM Name Arbiter

This field has a bit for each COM port. A one (1) indicates that the port has been allocated. Sure enough, I found that COM3-COM10 were allocated, even though those devices don't exist on my system. I uninstalled all my COM ports, set the corresponding bits to zero, and reinstalled my COM ports. They started with COM3 this time.

The next problem was that the COM ports still didn't match the numbers used in my software. I could have changed that in some of the software, but other older programs limit the COM port number range to COM1-COM8 and need ports that were assigned higher numbers on my Mac M1. First, I had to test each port to see what it actually connected to. Next, I had to change all the COM port names. It's a major pain to change COM port names on the fly in the registry because it won't let you rename a port to have the same name as another port (a problem that also comes up when you change COM ports in the Properties page for the device, when that's working.) So, I followed the instructions in the FTDI document for changing COM port numbers by dumping the FTDI key to a file, manually editing the COM port numbers, and re-loading the file into the registry. I had to reboot to get the changes to take effect, but it worked like a charm. All the COM ports are working just as they do on my huge desktop PC, which I can now retire because the Mac M1 can do everything it does.

The one remaining problem is that I have to boot with driver signing check turned off whenever I want to use the COM ports. Hopefully FTDI will fix that. Again, does anyone know of a beta or released version of the drivers that's newer than CDM v2.12.32.B3 for ARM64?

 

I emailed FTDI about the driver signing and enumeration issues I encountered, and asked whether they have a version of the drivers newer than CDM v2.12.32.B3. They replied that they know about the issues, which are due to the driver beta status. They won't be in the final release. They don't have a newer beta or final release yet, but will let me know when they do.

 

Are you able to share the beta driver files?

 

You can download the beta driver files from here:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/6h60x6kmkufzd6c/CDM_v2.12.32.B3_for_ARM64.zip/file

 

Update:
It seems that, at least for CP2102, I can't set a custom baud rate. I was only able to set standard baud rates like 57600 and 115200. While in Windows 10 x64 I was able to set non-standard values like 100200 bps and 91200 bps

 

CH340G and CP2102 already have updated drivers for Windows 11 ARM. I got my M1 Pro MacBook Pro working with those two.

 

Hello, I already received my MB M1 MaX and I have returned it,
I have not been able to install any USB-C to Serial RS232 adapter
But it all seems to be a Parallels problem.
I will have to continue with my MB 2015.
A very great frustration.