- For authentic Prolific PL2303 HXA/XA and TA/TB microchips
- Supports Windows 10 (x86, x64), from version 1903 (May 2019 update)
- Supports Windows 11 (x64)
Download PL2303 Legacy Updater Setup. This allows you to run the updater program (shown above) and check that a legacy driver works for your device.
If everything is okay, you are recommended to continue with the installation because you will need this program again if Windows Update changes your driver, or if you use other devices that require a different PL2303 driver. See Program details for more information.
Once it has been installed, just type "PL2303" into the Taskbar search control to run it.
Legacy drivers are provided for the following microchips:
| Version | Date | Support ended |
|---|---|---|
| 3.3.11.152 | 12-03-2010 | Windows 8 |
PL2303HXA and PL2303XA were phased out in 2012 due to counterfeit Chinese copies. Note that this driver will only be installed if Prolific recognizes the microchip.
This driver also supports older microchips (PL2303H, PL2303HX and PL2303X). If it is not suitable you can try the excellent Prolific PL-2303 Code 10 Fix program from Family Software, which uses an earlier driver version (3.3.2.102) from 2008. Older applications sometimes fail to write to the device, so using an earlier driver may solve this.
| Version | Date | Support ended |
|---|---|---|
| 3.8.36.2 | 12-05-2020 | Windows 11 |
PL2303TA and PL2303TB were both recommended by Prolific as replacements for the above end-of-life microchips. Unfortunately support for these ended with the release of Windows 11, presumably for a similar reason.
This driver can identify non-Prolific microchips and unsupported versions and will display a readable message in Windows Device Manager.
The program does not uninstall any existing PL2303 drivers. Instead it requires that your device is connected so it can instruct Windows to use the selected driver for this specific device.
Windows stores these device/driver/COM port configurations for the next time you connect, so it is possible to have a different device on another COM port using a different PL2303 driver.
But preserving this configuration cannot be guaranteed, so rather than fight against Windows Update (or the internal ranking of which driver to use), it is recommended to install this program so that you can run it again when you need to.