Every time I plug in a new Arduino PCB via USB, windows assigns a new COM port to it.
Is there a way to set any Arduino to use the same COM port (say when you'd like to program a stack of pcb's)?
** My apologies if this has already been answered... The search terms that I could come up with are so common, the that the results are hard to sift through. **
The key is to set 'IgnoreHWSerNum' in the registry for the Arduino DUE.
For reference the DUE's Vendor ID = 2341, the Product ID = 003d.
Follow Section 7.2 in the linked PDF to list all previously installed drivers.
Right-click on all existing Arduino serial ports listed in 'Ports', and select 'Uninstall'
Open Regedit, and add a new Binary entry as:
IgnoreHWSerNum2341003d to 1
(this is described in Section 7.1 in the PDF). See attached image.
The next time an Arduino board is plugged in, allow the serial driver to install ('let Windows do it for me' worked).
Now, when that board is disconnected and a new board that is connected, the new board will use the same Com port number.
From now on, each new Arduino DUE will use the same Com port assignment.
The "IgnoreHWSerNumvendor" is good way for mass production.
Tip:
I also had a large number of USB COM ports (by present and non present devices), so I quickly delete all of them and rescan for present only devices by script