Windows Update Drivers Bricking USB Serial Chips Beloved of Hardware Hackers
Hardware hackers building interactive gadgets based on the Arduino microcontrollers are finding that a recent driver update that Microsoft deployed over Windows Update has bricked some of their hardware, leaving it inaccessible to most software both on Windows and Linux. This came to us via hardware hacking site Hack A Day.
The driver in question is for a line of USB-to-serial chips designed by Scottish firm FTDI. FTDI’s chips are incredibly popular in this space, as just about every microcontroller and embedded device out there can communicate over a serial port. But this popularity has a downside; there’s a vast number of knock-off chips in the wild that appear to be made by FTDI, but in fact aren’t.
FTDI develops drivers for its chips. The drivers can be obtained directly from FTDI, or they can be downloaded by Windows automatically, through Windows Update. This latter feature is a great convenience for most people, as it enables plug-and-play operation.
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