Ya know, making the USB Adapter seems the best of all in that I can have some lights on it and I have a mega shield (by mistake long B4 the Mega) that has a footprint on it that the FTDI232 chip will fit... So... com port 0 on the mega? Finding the USB Device id would be something of a challenge as I think it might be more dependent on my computer... It hasn't acted the same... any two different times. I will go through the hardware installation, the way that windows wants... "Find New Hardware", can't hurt and it is one more thing checked out/off the list.
Down side to re-flashing the 8U... If I can't get windows to recognize the chip and the serial cable method is too.. well as they say... can't hurt it anymore than it is. The fact that it is partially recognized is a good argument for something, deciding what is I guess the Mark of the Man... Just had a weird thought, the board came with a regular usb cable but it is blue... I wonder
I also wonder as a noob what might be different or untouchable without a special programmer in the 8U2. Something just occurred to me??? how or where is the board id stored, in the 8U2 or is there some kind of interchange with the Big Chip for device id, Windows clearly knows what it is... at any rate I am going to save the link to that page and your others, gonna make a folder in Chrome just for useful links like that... much like I used to keep a good macro library for coding, good routines/functions can save a lot of work, some clever of necessity.
Thank You, Sir, Again for your Time, Your Insights and knowledge and most of all thank you for the Hope I have again in this thing.
Doc