Recent versions of cheap Chinese clones of Arduino boards have been coming with a different USB/Serial chip, which replaces the usual FTDI. I read somewhere that licensing costs of FTDI make it prohibitive to companies selling boards for as little as $3, so I assume this is the main motivation. Arduino software is needed to program Arduino boards and must be downloaded from the Arduino website and installed on a computer. This software is known as the Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Drivers must be installed in order to be able to program an Arduino from the Arduino IDE. This article shows how to download and install the Arduino IDE software and drivers on a Windows 10 computer. Downloading Arduino for Windows 10 Go to the where you will find two downloads for Windows – Windows installer and Windows ZIP as shown in the image below. Selecting an Arduino Software Download You can choose either of the two Windows options, but I prefer to use the ZIP file because it keeps the Windows system cleaner. Google drive for mac. The Windows Installer version of the software will download an installer which will install the software into the Windows system. The Windows ZIP file allows you to unzip the Arduino IDE to any location of your choice and easily remove it if you want by simply deleting the unzipped folder. This installation guide uses the Windows ZIP file, so download the ZIP file and proceed to the installation step below. After clicking the download link, you will have the option of making a donation to Arduino or just downloading the file for free. Installing Arduino Software on Windows 10 After downloading the Arduino Windows ZIP file, simply double-click it and then copy the folder from inside the zip file to the desired location. I prefer to copy it to my desktop. To avoid any confusion: the file that is downloaded is a file and not a folder, although it is called a 'Compressed (zipped) Folder' in Windows. Running the Arduino IDE Open the folder that you extracted from the zipped file and double click arduino.exe in the folder to start the Arduino IDE software. If you can not see file extension (the.exe on the file name), turn them on in the file manager by clicking View → File name extensions. If you want to create a shortcut to the Arduino IDE on your desktop, start dragging the arduino.exe file to the desktop and hold down the Ctrl + Shift keys before dropping it on the desktop. This will create a shortcut to the Arduino IDE instead of moving the file to the desktop. Make sure that you have not moved the arduino.exe file by looking at the name of the file on your desktop which should contain the word 'Shortcut' at the end. You can rename this shortcut to just Arduino or Arduino IDE. Installing Arduino Drivers in Windows 10 When you plug an Arduino board into a Windows 10 computer, a driver should automatically be installed for it. The driver configures the Arduino as a virtual COM port which can be seen in the Device Manager. Open the Device Manager window by right-clicking the Windows 10 start button in the lower left of the screen and then selecting Device Manager on the menu that pops up. In Device Manager, expand Ports (COM & LPT) and you should see a COM port which will be your Arduino as shown in the image below. If you have other COM ports on the PC, then unplug the Arduino to see which COM port disappears from the device manager, then plug the Arduino back in and see which port appears – this will be the Arduino port, e.g. COM4 in the image below.
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