NefMoto

I am not having any success in changing my VCDS from USB to COM 1-4. I have a Genuine Ross-Tech HEX+CAN cable. I went to the Ross-Tech site and followed directions, VCP drivers are up to date. Will not allow changing to an actual COM port.

I had a Chinese KKL cable, but something went wrong whilst logging in VCDS in my GTI 6 years ago and the fuse burnt up, shorted across and fried my ABS module, leaving my car in a no-start, no-communication state. $350 later +gas for friend who towed car 3 hours to nearest VW dealer, just for them to unplug the connector to the ABS module, and the car communicated and started back up and ran fine(sans ABS), I decided to go with a genuine cable.

Back to the issue at hand. I have a Windows 10 ASUS ROG laptop and I cannot change my rosstech cable to a COM port for the life of me. My device manager doesn't list COM ports at all and VCDS will only allow USB. If you can lead me in the right direction, I will forever be grateful. I've searched google and keep coming up with go to the COM section of device manager...well, mine doesn't have that section.

because you dont know wtf youre doing. not being mean, just being honest.
even if someone did tell you the answer, like right click on cable in device manager, properties, click load as vcp, etc etc, you wouldnt know what to do with the information. because if you did, you would have already figured all this out by now and not be running around this forum like a headless chicken and not need someone to tell you the answer.

BTW once you do this you have to unplug and replug the usb for it to take effect (or reboot).

Then the cable should show up in device manager in the lpt/com section

I am going to take a video and show you what I get, because I don't see anywhere to change it to VCP.....on winXP or win7, yes, I did have that option, but on Win10, it is not coming up, and none of my pc's have XP or 7 anymore.....and you people have helped others, why are you being dicks to me? Like I've said before, it's been 7 years since I did any tuning...I've had a rough run since then and it's slowly coming back, but dang, I don't get answers to my kind questions and I get ridiculed. This makes me feel like a noob on VW Vortex....which i'm not. so cut me a break.

I finally got an old pc to work, got the drivers set up and successfully read the EEPROM on the spare ECU. Now I will re-read the IMMO off procedure and update.

from the s4 wiki:

The Nefmoto Free ECU Flashing Software and an eBay USB VAG KKL cable - The easiest and best supported method. Does not rely on boot mode, but will not flash bricked ECUs because bootmode support is not complete. You can also use (recent) VCDS (Ross-tech) cables with Nefmoto, but you may have to disable "intelligent mode" in the VCDS setup dialog (intelligent mode causes the VCDS driver software to constantly poll the cable in the background, which may interfere with non VCDS apps). For more information, see the Nefmoto Flashing Guide. If you want to use the RossTech cable as a standard OBDII cable on a COM port (not just USB), install RossTech's VCP driver. Make sure you uninstall all of their other drivers first. Also, when you upgrade VCDS, do not let it install drivers over your VCP drivers.

http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/usb/virtual-com-port.html

read all that, did all that, didn't have any luck until I got an old pc with win xp working...and I've had my cable in dumb mode since I downloaded NEF.

The VCP drivers work fine in win10, both 32 and 64 bit.

yep. mine works wonderfully.

got it sorted...option I was looking for was in a different spot than the older OS's had...at least on my pc..thank you much!