I’ve been building a new project using an ESP32 microcontroller. Plugging the ESP32 into my Windows development laptop wasn’t showing up the com port for the device. Looking into Device Manager I saw the error below associated with the CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller. After some searching I found the CP210x USB to UART Bridge Virtual COM Port (VCP) drivers are required for device operation as a virtual com port to facilitate host communication with CP210x products. The Windows Universal Driver (along with drivers for other platforms) can be downloaded from Silicon Labs website here.
![ESP32 Com Port - CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller not recognised.](https://blog.darrenjrobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/image.png)
After extracting the archive I installed the driver by right clicking on the silabser.inf file …
![ESP32 Com Port - CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller Driver installation](https://blog.darrenjrobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/image-1.png)
… and selecting Install.
![ESP32 Com Port - CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller install](https://blog.darrenjrobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/image-2.png)
Following the installation of the CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller driver I was able to see the device under Ports (COM & LPT) along with the communications port number it had been assigned.
Hopefully this helps someone else as well as myself the next time I’ve got a laptop without the virtual com port driver installed.