Notes about the world around us and a personal knowledge base — Antonio Nemcd’s blog
For a long time my 64-bit Windows 7 had an unknown device in Device Manager. It didn’t really bother me, and I couldn’t find the driver quickly, so I left it.
Eventually it was time to sort it out.
In Device Manager the hardware ID is ven_8086&dev_29b4.
If you’ve just started experimenting with the VMware ESXi hypervisor, you may not have heard of VMware Tools yet.
VMware Tools is essential — it provides the drivers for guest operating systems.
On my old Asus M2NPV-VM motherboard the sound disappeared after upgrading to Windows 7.
The Asus M2NPV-VM is a nice, big board with plenty of RAM slots, onboard video and a SoundMAX AD1986A audio codec.
I found an old USB to COM (9-pin RS232) adapter in a drawer. This is what it looks like:
Judging by online shop listings it is a Viewcon VE 066, but the box is long gone, so it may be something else — for getting it to work that doesn’t matter.
An RS232 to USB adapter cable based on an Ark Pioneer Microelectronics chip doesn’t get a driver automatically — neither on Windows XP nor on Windows 7.
Windows sees it as USB\VID_6547&PID_0232&REV_0001 (or USB\VID_6547&PID_0232) and needs a driver for it to work.
This is the RS232 to USB adapter cable with the Ark Pioneer Microelectronics chip:
