2W1ETN

I needed some virtual com ports on Windows Vista for the car PC. Basically to get the Flex Radio 3000 interfacing with the Ham Radio Deluxe you need to interface via a com port.

I decided on Com0Com as the virtual com port driver, thus downloaded it from http://com0com.sourceforge.net/

Installation went ok until I got up a nice message about unsigned drivers, similar to this:

(Note that’s not exactly the same error as the driver is different, but the message and problem are)

Basically in Windows Vista x64 you cannot allow unsigned drivers to be installed. Even using BCDEdit to allow unsigned drivers doesn’t work as Microsoft has applied a number of security patches to prevent it. The only way to do it, is to press F8 on window boot and select the option which allows for unsigned drivers.

I don’t want to be pressing F8 every time I reboot the computer, as after all its designed to be in the car and getting the keyboard each time will soon become tiresome. Luckily I came across ReadyDriver which lets you boot from a CD Image, USB Stick or Floppy and it basically presses F8 and selects the options for you. That said I dont want to boot from a CD or any other external device. A bit more research and I was sent a copy of ReadyDriver Plus which basically installs a bin boot image and extends the Windows Boot Manager to boot into it and does the rest for you.

I’ve uploaded version 1.1 of the software, as it got sent to me and I’m not sure where from.

http://www.2w1etn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/SetupReadyDriverPlus.exe