Jet another quick post with an update, but this time to the GD-77 Community CPS
I’ve modified the GD-77 Community CPS to include an option to include the Windows Comm port driver needed when using the Community CPS with the OpenGD77 firmware.
By default the CPS installer will run the driver installer when the main part of the installation is complete.
Please note since the CPS is run by default after the installer finishes, the CPS application will obscure the driver installation window. However because the driver installer does not have a user interface this does not affect the operation of the driver installer, it simply means you don’t see it installing.
If for some reason the driver installer fails, it may leave its installation window open, and show an error message, but since I’ve never had a problem with the driver installation, I don’t know for sure what happens under those conditions.
If a GD-77 running the OpenGD77 firmware is connected to the PC when the driver is installed, you should see the Windows notifications in the bottom right of the screen, showing the driver has been installed. However if the GD-77 is not plugged in etc, Windows will not complete the driver installation until you plug in or turn on the GD-77 which is running the OpenGD77 firmware.
The CPS installer should already request Administrator privileges if it needs them, and these privileges will also be used for the driver installer, because they are essential for the driver installation.
The installer is available for download from the usual location https://github.com/rogerclarkmelbourne/radioddity_gd-77_cps/raw/master/installer/RadioddityGD77CPS31XCommunityEditionInstaller.exe
For those who want to know the technical details.
Windows 7 or newer requires “signed” drivers, which has been a major problem to the open source community, because it costs a fortune each year for the certificate etc.
Fortunately Pete Batard thought of a way around this by writing a driver installer library https://github.com/pbatard/libwdi, which I think creates a self signed certificate for the driver as part of the installation process, and thanks to some work done for the Arduino STM32 project (I’m sorry but I can’t remember who did the work), I was already in possession of a driver installer using libwdi specifically designed to install the USB Serial (USB CDCACM) device driver, which I was then able to reuse for use with the OpenGD77.
For the Arduino STM32 project, the drivers are installed using a Windows bat file, but in this case I’ve effectively put the part of the installation process handled by the bat file into the installer.
If anyone has problems with the driver installation, the driver installer is copied in the Windows Temp folder in a folder called OpenGD77CommDriver and is called wdi-simple.exe
If the driver installer needs to be re-run, this can be done my opening a Command Prompt (CMD) , changing to the %temp%\OpenGD77CommDriver directory and manually running the command
wdi-simple.exe –vid 0x01FC9 –pid 0x0094 –type 3 –name “OpenGD77“