topic Mapping COM port from Windows 10 to virtual machine in VMware Workstation Pro Discussions

Mapping COM port from Windows 10 to virtual machine

barry_hf — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:00:55 GMT

I'm running VMWare Workstation 16.

I verified that COM3 is connected and working. In the Device Manager, I can see the USB-serial connection as COM3 under Ports (COM & LPT). I can use putty to communicate over the port from the Windows host.

I shut down the client and followed the instructions:

1. Choose Settings->Hardware

2. Add...

3. Serial Port

4. Finish

"Serial Port 2" shows up as a Device in the Hardware tab.

I choose "Use physical serial port", and the only option is "Auto Detect". (I need COM3).

I choose "connect at power on"

Start up the virtual machine, and get a dialog saying, "Cannot connect the virtual device serial1 because no corresponding device is available on the host."

Why is this failing?

How do I specify that I need "COM3"?

Thanks,

barry_hf

Re: Mapping COM port from Windows 10 to virtual machine

continuum — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 20:27:07 GMT

To configure more than one com-port you cant use the GUI !

You must use the vmx-file.
See my notes : http://sanbarrow.com/vmx/vmx-serial-ports.html

Please note that I wrote those instructions for Workstation 7.
When I wrote, that you can use up to 4 physical com-ports inside a VM, this applied to Workstation 4.5, 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5 and 7 only.

As far as I know versions later than 12.01 can use only one or two Com-ports and those ports MUST be real Com-ports.

Additional ports supplied by a USB´- serial ports card/ adapter worked in the mentioned old versions only.
AFAIK what you have in mind will not work at all with any of the recent versions - I assume that the documentation in case it still mentions up to 4 possible com-ports has just been copied over from the working good old versions and nobody ever checked if that part still applies nowadays.

Suggestion: forget about trying to assign com-ports to your VM.

Try to provide the com-ports by connecting a usb-2-comports adapter to the VM and set

serial0.present = "false"
serial1.present = "false"
serial2.present = "false"
serial3.present = "false"

in the vmx-file.

Ulli

Re: Mapping COM port from Windows 10 to virtual machine

barry_hf — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 13:23:44 GMT

Editing the .vmx file worked for me. I replaced all existing "serial1" entries with this:

serial1.present = "TRUE"
serial1.autodetect = "FALSE"
serial1.fileType = "device"
serial1.fileName = "COM3"
serial1.tryNoRxLoss = "FALSE"

The VMWare GUI now says "Serial Port 2": "Using port COM3". Under Connection: "Use physical serial port" is checked with "COM3" in the drop down. COM3 wasn't available before.

The linux client maps the serial device to /dev/ttyS1.

Thanks for the help,

barry_hf