Connection of multiple Simulide Applications in WIN10

I think it would be great to have a thread about connecting SimulIDE instances in WIN10 since I had a lot of trouble with it.

com0com: not working with secureboot
My first idea was: let's try com0com, since this is the way to go on other platforms. Unluckily, I was not successful to get the created connection pairs in the right device group in the device manager. They were always in "com0com - serial port emulators" not in "Connectors (COM & LPT)". Additionally, the connection (see properties-> events) was configured, but not started. Searching the problem code 0x34 (in dec: 52) on the microsoft page leads to "Windows cannot verify the digital signature for the drivers required for this device. (Code 52)”
This problem did not disappear with the signed version of com0com from source forge. I also did not succeed in finding a different signed version.
A workaround is to disable secureboot on startup, which is not an option in my case.  

free-virtual-serial-ports: kind of working
One feasible solution is the freemium tool "free-virtual-serial-ports". It allows to set up a connector pair COM1 - COM2. The free version has also some major limitations like: only one pair possible, no change of the COM name allowed, etc.
The tool can be downloaded via freevirtualserialports.com/features

other freeware / open source tools: ?
I would be glad to see some. Up to now I have not found any, working with the secureboot restrictions of WIN10..

Sadly i can't help much about about these issues in Windows.

But i know some people are using this one:
https://www.hw-group.com/software/hw-vsp3-virtual-serial-port

Not sure about this one, but could be an option:
https://www.eltima.com/products/vspdxp/


Another optiop to comunicate with other apps (to implement in the future) would be adding tcp sockets and allow to bind it to serial, i2c, spi, etc.

It's more a thread for other users in order to get the "higher level feature" of serial connection on WIN10 running

Virtual Serial Port Driver (eltima) works at leas for 14days  
I also tried the eltima version. This seems not only to come in the two flavours "Standard" and "Pro" given on its homepage. The downloaded (free) standard version starts with the info that its features will get limited in 14 days. I will add som more info in 11 days, but I assume some kind of stonger limitations.

vsp3-virtual-serial-port (hw-group) wasn't able to get it right
I was able to get the stand alone single version running as admin, but failed to get a connetion to a serial port. Furthermore, it seems that it is only possible to connect serial to tcp ip/LAN but not serial to serial.

The future option of socket connection for I2C, SPI etc. would be great. However, I'm not sure whether tcp would be the best for that. I'm not really familiar with the tc-protocol, but have for tcp quite loaded packages in mind. Maybe udp could help. A problem could arise, when somebody likes to emulate sensors with some MHz baudrate. But like always, it's not possible to get a simulation for everything...

Hi all,

I have successfully used com0com with SimulIDE on W10.

After struggling with the secureboot issue I've found a solution:

1-) Download the com0com command line utility (kindly created by PETE’S BLOG) at the following link (right click at it and select “Save link as…”:

http://files.akeo.ie/blog/com0com.7z

In this procedure we’ll use this com0com command line utility instead of the GUI installer because the current version of the GUI has unsigned drivers, not easy to deal with in Windows 10.

2-) Extract the “com0com.7z” file in the directory of your preference. Access the i386 (32 bits) or the x64 (64 bits) folders, according to your system. Execute the “setupc.exe” as an Administrator.

A new window prompt will be opened.

Enter the following command:

install PortName=COM1 PortName=COM2

This command will create the COM1 and COM2 ports and connect both, virtually.

Note: If you already have COM1 and COM2 ports in your computer, just name them with any other names (e.g.: COM3 and COM4, etc.).

Note: If you already have COM1 and COM2 ports in your computer, just name them with any other names (e.g.: COM3 and COM4, etc.).

If you use the “list” command, you will see both COM1 and COM2 listed.

Even though the port names are COM1 and COM2, the “real” names are “CNCA0” and “CNCB0“, so if you want to delete this virtual connection in the future, just use the “remove 0” command.

With that, I could connect SimulIDE with a Serial Monitor. In the image below, the Arduino IDE Serial Monitor was used:



And that's it!

Thanks, great finding!

On Chrome browsers one has to trust the download and on Win10 also to trust the driver. After this, it work fine.
(And - as you wrote - the download has to be started by right-clicking plus "save link as..")