I should have believed those other reviews that says this Serial Adapter doesn't work on XP, because it doesn't. The driver included on the CD does absolutly nothing, and the adapter simply will not work. Do not buy it if you are running XP. IOGEAR USB 2.0 to Serial/PDA Converter Cable GUC232A
This does not work under win XP. It seems to work, but frequently crashes the OS with the infamious windows "Blue Screen of Death".
This is even true with the latest drivers downloaded from the IOGear web site as of 4/2005.
IOGear tech support does not respond to error reports on this device.
RUN AWAY!
Trust the other reviewers. This does not work with Windows XP. Even though on the outside of the box it states it will work with XP on the inside it says "We have developed a walkthrough for our customers wishing to use the USB/PDA adapter with Windows XP. Although we currently make no official guarantees of functionality, many people have had success when installing the Windows 2000 driver." They can't even say it will work. Many hours of attempting to get this to work for my Palm Vx, I was about to give up UNTIL I saw on Amazon an adapter that Reviwers said worked with Windows XP. I bought it and it does!! So, save your money from IOGEAR and purchase the CABLES TO GO USB to Serial Adapter. It is so much simpler to install and it works!!!
Hello,This is to contradict a negative review for using this product w/ Mac OS X 10.2. I have successfully used it in combination with ZTerm to configure a Cisco router. It certainly works fine for me. I just had to install the os X driver from the iogear website.Thank you,
I must be the exception here, but this adaptor worked fine for me in XP and 2k. XP didn't even need the driver disk, but pulled a working driver off of windows update automatically. Worked with my old USR modem perfectly, and even worked connected to the console port of a Sun Ultra Enterprise box. 2k needed the driver downloaded off of the iogear website, but then worked perfectly.
If anything, it worked even better under linux: I didn't even have to do anything to get the driver to load; it just worked, where windows made me run through a wizard to get the driver loaded. I didn't try hot-plugging it under linux, but I don't see why it wouldn't work that way too. Even the minimal 50MB DSL distribution worked with this adaptor without any special configuration, again successfully using an old USR modem, and working as a console for a Sun Ultra Enterprise using `microcom -D/dev/ttyUSB0`.
I don't know what I'm doing any differently than the people that say they are having problems with this adaptor, but I've not had any indications of trouble from this device. Under windows, I'm using an old generic driver that was either from windows update (XP) or on the iogear website (2K). The XP driver I am using says it is for an `ATEN USB to Serial Bridge` and is dated 7/16/2003, version 2.0.0.18. Under linux, the generic pl2303 usbserial driver supports this device and gives you /dev/ttyUSBx device links.
I have had good luck with this device, the speed is pretty good and it's fairly small, taking up very little of my precious laptop bag real estate. The price was modest and the construction seems to be fairly durable. Since it is supported under linux, even on a restricted microdistributino like DSL, it is going to be of much more use to me than I might have expected, given that linux support is not listed on the box. I really don't see what else I could want: it works as advertised.
I was a bit concerned about how well this adapter would work after reading about some of the installation problems below ... but no problem ... it installed automatically in XP on my new Dell Dimension 2400 in seconds. Apparently the drivers have been updated for XP. The installation on my old Compaq laptop (Win ME) took a few clicks and a reboot (don't forget that) but was also quick and easy. It works great with my serial GPS. I like it.
I have read 20 other reviews of this product here on Amazon, and I sympathize with those for whom the product did not work. In the "open" world of PC hardware and Windows, there's a zillion drivers, written by who-knows-whom, and of dubious quality. Interactions between various system add-ons could cause problems, if a poorly written device driver "steps on" another one.
I only mention this because it is difficult to say if a particular product will work with YOUR system, even when it works for everyone else. This is true in any system (Mac OS 8, 9, 10, Linux, or Windows) where third party drivers are installed and run. You just never know until you try it. It's very likely, in the case of those who've had problems, that the IOGEAR driver isn't the real cause of the crashes at all -- it's just the "victim" of another device driver's bad behavior. There's really no good way to tell without trying it for yourself.
For me, I found NO problems installing and running this device. I plugged it into my system (a Dell Dimension 4600 running Windows XP SP2) and when the hardware wizard started up, it advised me to insert the driver disk into the CD.
I had asked the wizard to "let me select a driver from a list" and also to "search for a driver". After it sniffed the CD and the internet, it presented me with a list containing a handful of choices. I chose the most recent SIGNED driver on the supplied CD ROM. The version was v2.0.0.18.
Voila! Done, a new COM3: port was present on my system. The COM port works just fine with all the apps I've tried it with. In fact, I've installed TWO of these devices on the same machine, and then ran them with an MSDOS legacy application that implements a "serial channel analyzer"... it worked PERFECTLY!
(This is pretty incredible to me, because it means that Windows XP not only "virtualized" the two COM ports, but it mapped them correctly into the USB devices! The app in question is an MSDOS app that "touches" the serial I/O hardware directly and hooks the serial port interrupts! Windows fakes all of this out and makes it work CORRECTLY over the USB! Amazing!).
For those who are thinking of buying this product for use on Windows XP SP2, I would say go ahead and buy it. I've had nothing but success with it. - Usb Adapter - Serial Adapter - Iogear - 2009 Amazon Frustration-fre'
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