I just recently bought a USB to serial (RS232) port adapter as well as a USB to parallel (IEEE1284) port adapter. I need them to connect a development microprocessor board and debugger module to my laptop for one of my current classes. The usb to serial adapter works great and does just what it is supposed to do, which is to create a virtual serial COM port through USB. The parallel port adapter however did not come with XP drivers, instead it relies on the native XP driver "usbprint.sys", which works only if you want to install a parallel port printer. I don't want to hook up a printer though, I just need it to create a virtual LPT port so that the debugger can communicate with the software. The driver cd came with drivers for Win 98/ME, however. I have inspected the .inf files and I can tell for sure that they do what they are supposed to, by creating a virtual port, not just printer support. I have tried everything I could to get XP to use the 98 driver, but for some reason it won't let me update the driver to the older one. The .inf file's version signature says "$CHICAGO$" which means it should work on XP also, but windows tells me that it doesn't contain information about my hardware (which is total bs ). The vendor ID and product ID matches the device, which is what really doesn't make sense why I would get that error. So I what I need to know is if it is possible to disable the native xp driver "usbprint.sys" for the device, and somehow force windows to install the 98 drivers. There are no other drivers for this device, I've looked everywhere, and all say that XP supports it out of the box. So I was hoping someone would be able to help. I can paste the inf files in here if it will help. Thanks
i think usbprint.sys is an essential part of windows, and disabling may cause windows not to boot, at best you would kill off the ability to communicate with your USB devices.
Well I'm thinking that it may not necessarily need to be disabled. The most important thing is to get windows to recognize that the driver does contain information about my hardware. Once that is done, then windows should just use the win 98 driver and not associate the device with usbprint.sys. I messed around with the device in the registry and I was able to change the class of the device to "ports" instead of "usb devices" but it isn't that simple. It shows up as a port in the device manager now, but I believe it is for organizational purposes mostly. I've been exploring the registry for the USB to serial device since they are very similar in purpose and they have the same manufacturer. There are special entries for the port, but I don't know how to translate them to LPT instead of COM, it's just out of my grasp
I've got good news. I was just messing around with the driver some more and I was able to modify the INF file so that it would recognize the device! It was only a matter of typing a USB/ in front of the product and vendor ID. I figured out how to do it by using some driver developer software to generate an INF file that would recognize the device but not actually provide a driver. So I compared to the two files and saw that it was the only real difference between the two file structures. So now windows installs the driver and creates a virtual LPT port (LPT3). I have yet to test the cable with a device but I have very good reason to believe it will work. For future reference I will paste the modified parppl.inf text here
Installing the USB to Parallel driver I've just read your sollution to make the USB to Parallel driver create an LPT port instead of the USB printing support. I have the same problem: I am using Windows XP in my laptop and need an LPT port configured because of a software that requires the use of a parallel port hard key. The thing is that I've installed the original drivers for my USB 2.0 Docking station, and I have been unable to replace this driver installation with your modified INF file. If I try to install it manually, at the end of the "Add New Hardware" process I get a message that Windows was unable to install the driver because "a function driver was not found fr this device" (I hope I have translated this right, because my Windows XP is in Portuguese). Could you provide me some kind of step-by-step procedure to use the USB to Parallel driver? It would help me greatly, and save me a lot of trouble shopping for another USB to Parallel adapter, without knowing if it would work at all. Thanks
Problems with USB to Parallel driver I tried, but the result was the same. I am trying this way: I manually start the Add New Hardware Wizard, say that it is already connected and select "Add new hadrware". Then, I choose to select the hardware from a list. I select "Ports (COM & LPT). At the hardware list, I have a USB to Parallel port from OCT from a previous attempt to install a USB to Parallel driver. I then select "With disc", point to the folder containing parppl.inf, and proceed. It warns me about the driver not being signed, but I select to proceed. At the end, The same error message appears, saying that "a function driver was not specified for this device". Maybe This OCT driver is causing trouble. I don't know how to remove it from the drivers list. Any ideas? Thanks,
Well it could easily be that your device does not have the exact same USB vendor id and product id numbers. The driver contains these and compares it with the device. Try downloading this program - USB VIEW and look for your device in the list of devices. You will have to change the VID and PID in the driver inf file if it is not the same. Here is the line that you would have to change, and in the parupl.inf file as well. What is the OCT driver? You should be able to delete it by uninstalling the device from device manager.
Problems with USB to Parallel driver I've tried, but so far I am getting the same answer from the Add Hardware Wizard. Please take a look at what USB View shows me: Device Descriptor: bcdUSB: 0x0100 bDeviceClass: 0x00 bDeviceSubClass: 0x00 bDeviceProtocol: 0x00 bMaxPacketSize0: 0x08 (8) idVendor: 0x0B39 idProduct: 0x0801 bcdDevice: 0x0202 iManufacturer: 0x01 iProduct: 0x02 iSerialNumber: 0x00 bNumConfigurations: 0x01 ConnectionStatus: DeviceConnected Current Config Value: 0x01 Device Bus Speed: Full Device Address: 0x04 Open Pipes: 2 Endpoint Descriptor: bEndpointAddress: 0x01 Transfer Type: Bulk wMaxPacketSize: 0x0040 (64) bInterval: 0x00 Endpoint Descriptor: bEndpointAddress: 0x00 Transfer Type: Control wMaxPacketSize: 0x0507 (1287) wInterval: 0x0282 bSyncAddress: 0x40 I've used the idVendor as VID and the idProduct as PID. The device detected with these parameters is the USB printing support. It is coneected to a certain Generic USB Hub, which presents the following information: External Hub: USB#Vid_0451&Pid_2046#6&2fabda88&0&4#{f18a0e88-c30c-11d0-8815-00a0c906bed8} Hub Power: Self Power Number of Ports: 4 Power switching: Ganged Compound device: No Over-current Protection: Global Device Descriptor: bcdUSB: 0x0110 bDeviceClass: 0x09 bDeviceSubClass: 0x00 bDeviceProtocol: 0x00 bMaxPacketSize0: 0x08 (8) idVendor: 0x0451 (Texas Instruments) idProduct: 0x2046 bcdDevice: 0x0125 iManufacturer: 0x00 iProduct: 0x00 iSerialNumber: 0x00 bNumConfigurations: 0x01 ConnectionStatus: DeviceConnected Current Config Value: 0x01 Device Bus Speed: Full Device Address: 0x03 Open Pipes: 1 Endpoint Descriptor: bEndpointAddress: 0x81 Transfer Type: Interrupt wMaxPacketSize: 0x0001 (1) bInterval: 0xFF My parallel port is actually a part of a device named USB 2.0 DOCK. It has 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 1.1 port, 2 PS/2 ports, 1 serial port and the parallel port. Only the parallel port is giving me this trouble, the other ports work just fine.
Well I didn't know you had a multi-adapter type of connection. It seems as though it is by a completely different manufacturer, so I don't think this driver is going to work. If this device came with a driver for windows 98 then I might be able to help you modify that one to be recognized by XP, but the driver for my device probably isn't going to work.
Problems with USB to Parallel driver The drivers provided with my device are the ones from Prolific. The serial driver - PL-2303 - works just fine, as so the other ones for other functionalities. The parallel drivers are from Prolific, the ones for Win98 and ME. I was surprised to see different VID and PID numbers for the port using the USB print support when I ran USBVIEW. I also checked the serial port VID and PID, and those were what I have expected for the PL-2303. It seems that the OCT USB to Parallel driver is causing the problem, but I could not uninstall it: it is not in use and it has no uninstall utility. Do you know a way for me to remove this driver from the list presented by the Add Hardware Wizard?
zegracia, did you found a solution? I´ve got the same problem now and i tried that solution but didn´t work with the same messages. Thanks for an help. Santerio PS: (Are you brazilian zegracia?)
Still no sollution Unfortunately, I still have no sollution. What I've tried is to purchase a PCMCIA card with two parallel ports. That gave me LPT ports, but it has some compatibility issues with hardkey driver from Sentinel, so no go... (By the way, I am Brazillian, but let's keep it in english for the sake of the other non-portuguese-speaking users, ok?)
After messing around with the drivers and getting windows to report the adapter as a LPT port, it still does not function as an actual port would. I did some research and found out that the hardware on the adapters only emulates the functions of a parallel port for the print functions. The chipset on the adapter will never fully emulate a parallel port. I found the information on this page - http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/bastelecke/Rund um den PC/USB2LPT/index.html.en The guy that runs that site also sells an adapter that does actually emulate a a parallel port. There's info on there that may help.
