Use a Keyspan USB-to-Serial adapter with Virtual Box

Jul 29, '08 07:30:03AM

Contributed by: caver01

Sun's VirtualBox is a slick new virtualization alternative to VMWare Fusion, Parallels, and the like. For some of us, we not only need to run a Windows app, but that app requires a connection to a serial device. Here's what I did just now to get my Keyspan USA-19HS USB-to-Serial adapter working in VirtualBox under Windows XP:

  1. Windows XP installed without a hitch, but it had no COM ports set up. It turns out that I hadn't turned them on in VirtualBox, so I did that.
  2. Installed the Keyspan drivers on my Mac (Leopard, 10.5.4).
  3. Downloaded SerialClient, the excellent app that seems to make this work.
  4. Attached the Keyspan adapter.
  5. In XP, I went into the Add Hardware wizard, and scrolled down to the bottom to add hardware I pick from a list. Basically, I wanted to force XP to set up an item in Device Manager for a COM port. The device was created, but for some reason, it ended up being a COM3, IRQ4, at address 3F8 (this is important in a moment).
  6. In VirtualBox, I then edited Serial Ports in the Settings area of my virtual machine. After enabling Port 1, I set the Port Number drop-down to User-defined, and set it to IRQ 4, 3F8 as above. Port Mode is Host Pipe. Finally, put a checkmark in the box labeled Create Pipe, and enter path of /tmp/serial without the quotes. Click OK to exit.
  7. Now, finally, run the SerialClient software downloaded above. Make the stream path /tmp/serial, just as above. Select your serial port KeySerial1. Baud Rade is 115200 and defaults on the rest.
  8. Restart Windows XP, and while it's coming up, go ahead and click Conncect in SerialClient.
Windows now seems just fine with the COM3 I created -- there's no yellow "!" in device manager, and the Keyspan adapter LED is solid green. I then tested the adapter in my windows app and indeed, the serial connection is working! I am using Windows XP Pro as my guest OS, so, unless you are set up the same, the exact steps may differ somewhat.

[robg adds: This same method (or a slight variant of it) should work using Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. VirtualBox is a very good (and free!) virtualization solution for OS X; I gave a brief overview of its abilities in my most-recent Macworld video.]

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