USB Driver for WIN 7 ?

[Greece2]

When I connect this wonderful little device via USB to my WIN 7 PCs / Laptops, it is only recognized as an USB-Device and USB JTAG/serial but WIN 7 isn't assigning any COM-Port. Tried via the ESPRESSIF Flash Tool as I thought that might come with the driver, but also no success. Any idea where to find a compatible driver ?
Many thanks in advance !

[EmEiBee]

I think most of us don't use Windows 7 anymore; I don't either. So, most people probably won't be able to replicate it to solve your problem.
The problem is probably that there are no drivers for Windows 7. You'd have to be patient and do trial and error to see if you can misuse some other driver.
I doubt the FlashTool will still work under Windows 7, though.

[Greece2]

Hi, thanks for the answer. I'm not giving up though ;-) If I should come across a working WIN7-driver (maybe in the archives of ESPRESSIF ?) I'll post it here.

[EmEiBee]

Just a quick question:
Why are you sticking with Windows 7 and not switching to Windows 10? Is there a particular reason for that? I'm curious...

[Greece2]

Hi, that's easy to answer. WIN10 is just horrible. Everything is hidden somewhere, everything is cluttered with some hideous apps and so on. WIN11 is much better again. But still, just BloatWare ;-) Does nothing that WIN7 doesn't already do ;-)
And some of my PC / Laptops in my workshop simply wouldn't run WIN11, as well as some software that isn't happy with WIN11. Or the other way round ;-)

But, surprise, surprise, the solution was found ! :-)
ZADIG, the magic tool for USB drivers, did the trick. Described in detail on the ESPRESIFF-pages, that's where I found the instructions.
Now a COM-Port is assigned to the ATS-Mini and everything works like a charm.

The full article can be found here:
https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32s3/api-guides/dfu.html

[EmEiBee]

Hmmm...
As for WIN7, you're right, of course. It's much simpler. However, there are many things I use here that wouldn't run at all under WIN7. And there are no viable Linux derivatives for many applications.
So I have no other choice.

Apart from that, I still steer clear of WIN11. In both cases, there are tools to get rid of bloatware and the like. WIN11 still makes frequent calls home, which, unlike WIN10, I couldn't stop.

But that's another topic...

Great that you found a solution and shared it here!

[Greece2]

My pleasure. Might be useful for other users who can't or wouldn't update to WIN10/11.

[Hamberthm]

Hi, in my honest opinion using Windows 7 or any unsupported Microsoft operating system with a network cable attached to the system, is a dangerous practice. The probability of being a hacking victim with ransomware/malware is really high and it can serve as a security vector for your entire network even if the rest of the systems are updated.
Unless your Win 7 system is "sandboxed", that is, using it without a network attached to it, then you would be better using something like a Linux distro. Take this as an advice. In case you know what you are doing, dismiss this message entirely.