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Welcome to the FTD2XX Programmer's Guide
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FTDIs "D2XX Direct Drivers" for Windows offer an alternative solution to our VCP drivers which allows application software to interface with FT232R USB UART, FT245R USB FIFO, FT2232C Dual USB UART/FIFO, FT232BM USB UART, FT245BM USB FIFO, FT8U232AM USB UART and FT8U245AM USB FIFO devices using a DLL instead of a Virtual COM Port.

The architecture of the D2XX drivers consists of a Windows WDM driver that communicates with the device via the Windows USB stack and a DLL which interfaces the application software (written in Visual C++, C++ Builder, Delphi, VB etc.) to the WDM driver. An INF installation file, uninstaller program and D2XX programmers guide complete the package.

The document is divided into four parts:

·Classic Interface Functions which explains the original functions with some more recent additions  

·EEPROM Interface which allows application software to read/program the various fields in the FT232R/FT245R internnal EEPROM or external 93C46/93C56/93C66 EEPROM for other devices, including a user defined area which can be used for application specific purposes.  

·Extended API Functions which allow control of the additional features available from our 2nd generation devices onwards.  

·FT-Win32 API which is a more sophisticated alternative to the Classic Interface - our equivalent to the native Win 32 API calls that are used to control a legacy serial port. Using the FT-Win32 API, existing Windows legacy Comms applications can easily be converted to use the D2XX interface simply by replacing the standard Win32 API calls with the equivalent FT-Win32 API calls.  

Please note that the Classic Interface and the FT-Win32 API interface are alternatives.
Developers should choose one or the other: the two sets of functions should not be mixed.

Main Differences Between Windows and Windows CE D2XX Drivers

·Location IDs are not supported by Windows CE  
·FT_ResetPort and FT_CyclePort are not available  
·Windows CE does not support overlapped IO for FT_Win32 functions  

Main Differences Between Windows and Linux D2XX Drivers

·Location IDs are not supported by Linux  
·FT_SetResetPipeRetryCount, FT_ResetPort and FT_CyclePort are not available  
driverarchitecture