Fix Prolific USB to Serial Comm Port Driver Error on Windows 10/11

Contents:

Prolific USB to Serial Comm Port Driver Overview

What is Prolific USB to Serial Devices?

How to Update Prolific USB to Serial Driver

Prolific USB to Serial Comm Port Driver Overview

If you are using a Prolific USB-to-Serial device such as PL2303, after upgrading the system to Windows 10, it is out of work. And when you open device manager, there is a yellow exclamation in the Ports (COM & LPT) list: Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM5).

And when choosing the properties from the right-click context menu, the General tab shows a code 10 error: the device cannot start.

What is Prolific USB to Serial Devices?

The USB to Serial devices is developed by Prolific to provide interface bridge solution to connect your legacy peripherals and application on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android system.

Tips:

If you think your profilic USB cable is broken, you can get another one from here: Prolific USB 2.0 to RS-232 DB9 Serial Adapter.

How to Download Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port Driver

So when you met this problem, do not worry about it. There are 3 ways you can do to solve it.

1: Update Prolific USB-to-Serial Driver in Device Manager

2: Update Prolific USB to Serial Drivers Automatically

3: Manually Download Prolific USB to Serial Drivers for Windows 11/10

Solution 1: Update Prolific USB-to-Serial Driver in Device Manager

The normal way and fast way to fix usb-serial controller driver unavailable is to update the USB to the serial device driver in device manager. It will help Windows 10 recognize the devices again and restart it.

1. Open device manager by right-click Windows icon and choose it from the results.

2. Expand Ports (Com & LPT), right-click Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (Com5) to select Update Driver Software. In your computer, maybe it is another comm port.

3. Search automatically for updated driver software. In this step, windows will search the latest of prolific USB to Serial driver for Windows 10.

After Windows 10 detected the right driver, it will download and install it automatically.

If the device manager cannot help you solve this problem, try to use the next two solutions.

Solution 2: Update Prolific USB to Serial Drivers Automatically

If you have the problem of manual downloading the USB to serial driver, you can use Driver Booster to help you.

Driver Booster, a professional drivers download and update software, can scan all the missing and outdated devices drivers such as graphic, audio, USB, keyboard, speaker, mouse, monitor, battery etc. So if your prolific USB to serial driver missed, this software can fix it easily and fast.

1. Download, install and run Driver Booster on your computer.

2. Follow Scan > Update or Update Now process to finish update the prolific USB to Serial drivers.

Driver Booster can detect all the computer devices including internal and external devices. In Windows 10, it will identify all the devices and shows the original driver version, release date, manufacturer.

After identifying all devices, it will compare these drivers with the latest drivers. If the driver is not the latest one, it will recommend the latest driver. If one of the devices does not have a driver, it will also provide the latest driver.

Solution 3: Manually Download Prolific USB to Serial Drivers for Windows 11/10

Before you fix it manually, you need to uninstall USB to Serial device at first.

1. Right-click the Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port and choose to Uninstall to delete the device.

2. Enter the Prolific download center. Here use the PL2303 as an example. Then you will see the different devices. You can choose PL2303 windows driver download.

3. In PL2303 Windows drivers download page, you can download the driver file: 18.0B.zip.

This file supports Windows 10, and it is a WHQL driver. So you can download it safely. After PL2303_Prolific_DriverInstaller_v1.18.0B.zip file downloading finished, install it step by step.

After updating the driver, reboot the computer and check it in the device manager. And of course, you can check if the code 10 error disappears.

So using these 3 methods to update prolific USB to Serial drivers for Windows 10 can fix the devices not working issue.

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