I do a lot of console work and used Belkin's USB to serial port (9 pin) - it works great but is awkward to carry. I got this to keep it simple and I just plugged it into my Win7 and Win10 laptops. I allowed driver installation through Windows Update Center and successfully installed the 2017 USB FTDI Serial Driver and FTDI USB Serial Converter Driver. To work with a Cisco router - I changed the baud rate to 9600 - data bits 8 - stop bits 1 - no parity - no flow control and it works with no problems. Very happy with this purchase.