Jaycar Australia sells a product named “4 Port USB 2.0 Networking Server” under the CAT. NO. YN8406. It would be nice if they put a manufacturers link on the page…

I needed a Windows 2012 server to be able to access it. But the driver download from Jaycar didn’t support Windows8/2012.

I think on the web interface to the USB Server it mentioned “elite silicon technology” so I Googled.

The Windows 2012 software is available from http://www.elitesilicon.com/Support.html

I believe they are the manufacturer of the Chipset.

I managed to get Windows 8 (2012) client software and a Firmware update from version 100.070 to 100.084 the firmware update failed when using a browser to upload but worked from the Windows client software.

Incidentally the reason for me searching for updated drivers/firmware was that I was trying to work around a problem with Citect Historian requiring a USB Dongle to run.

I have a VMWare environment and didn’t want the Citect Historian installation to be restricted to one VMWare Host because of a USB Licensing Dongle being stuck in the back.

Theoretically this 4-Port USB Server was going to provide access to the USB Licensing Dongle – and it worked when I was logged in. But the USB Server Client software on Windows 2012 Server required a GUI program to run to make the connection to the USB Licensing Dongle and I couldn’t get the USB Server Client working as a service thus allowing Citect Historian 4.4 to authenticate with it’s licensing dongle while not logged in (i.e. after a reboot).

So it ended up not being a viable solution.  However apparently they have changed the licensing model so the latest just-released version: Citect Historian 4.5 will work in a VMWare environment (i.e. allow vmotion).