Not gonna sugarcoat it—RS232 emulation is a pain on modern Windows, and yeah, most freebie tools are either sketchy, abandoned, or utterly allergic to Win11. I’ve been down the same rabbit hole as @mikeappsreviewer, but while their suggestion of Virtual Serial Port Driver is definitely one of the more robust options out there, I’ll just throw in my two cents.
If you’re absolutely bent on not spending cash (though honestly, why risk hours of headbanging for $80?), com0com sometimes works, but you need to wrangle digital signatures and, surprise, it breaks with half the updates. You might also look at Eltima’s other offerings or even Hyperterminal’s old ghosts, but none were flawless with new software stacks.
Virtual Serial Port Driver, though, pretty much fixes the garbage fire. Custom baud, hardware flow, smooth UI, multichannel support—yeah, all the stuff you want for app-to-app serial testing without cartwheels and curses. When it comes to dependability and not pulling your hair out after every Windows patch, that’s the way to go. You can always take a test drive before you commit.
Honestly—if you want a solution that just works and actually makes serial port emulation on Windows 11 bearable, drop by discovering top RS232 emulation options for Windows and see if it fits your workflow. At least you’ll stop wasting time on band-aid fixes and get back to actually building your project. Happy cable-free serial-ing!