Getting the Prolific USB serial adapter working with Windows 8 can be difficult. Especially if you are studying for CCNA and you need to access a 2960G switch on Windows with Putty. As strange as it may look, you need an outdated driver to make it work. The only working version I have found is 3.3.2.102, which you can find at this link: http://www.securitronlinux.com/maps/PL2303_USBSerial_Win78_3264.zip After installing this driver, you need to force this driver version by going to device manager, choose update driver by right clicking on the Prolific adapter, then choose “browse my computer for driver software”, then “let me pick…”. On the next window, it should show you different versions of the driver, and you need to choose version 3.3.2.102. This will get the device working on Windows.
The Prolific driver is now configured in Windows 8 Enterprise.
Now we force the installation of the installed driver and configure our device for use…