user33435: I have some devices that, when I plug in, will display a unique name, usually a serial number, as opposed to "COM #" is there any way I can have my Arduino Uno (or Mega) give itself a different name in my program's set up structure?
Edit: My purpose here is that I'm writing a program on the computer side that needs to find the Arduino among multiple possible COM ports. I'm deploying this program over multiple computers that I don't have admin access to so changing the registry is likely a non-starter.
Right now, I'm going through each port and sending a *idn?\n (which my program responds to with a specific string). For another device I have, I can search the possible connections for a port named [device serial number] and test that one first. 

user32126: 
If you read this So it says:
You'll have to change the software on the Arduino USB chip itself, 
and you may need to modify the drivers for the Arduino USB interface
on the computer side. It's not trivial, and probably not worth it.

Then according to this you need to toggle and tinker with the Driver software 

Wait that means it is not the correct answer. So according to your plan you need to maybe toggle with IDE that is instead of manually changing the ports you want the software to identify on its own. So for that purpose you have to tweak with Arduino board bootloader, and say it send a message to the Arduino IDE on startup . After that you have to tweak with Arduino ide source codes and then tweak it to Search for that message and then it reads down the address that is its COM


user10394: On Windows you can change the "Friendly names" assigned to devices and COM ports are devices.  The process is basically open the device manager, open the device properties, find the 'Device Key' and then locate that in the registry and change the 'Friendly Name' value.
See this page for more details:
https://www.eightforums.com/customization/15321-tutorial-how-change-device-names-device-manager.html

33435: <p>I have some devices that, when I plug in, will display a unique name, usually a serial number, as opposed to "COM #" is there any way I can have my Arduino Uno (or Mega) give itself a different name in my program's set up structure?</p>

<p>Edit: My purpose here is that I'm writing a program on the computer side that needs to find the Arduino among multiple possible COM ports. I'm deploying this program over multiple computers that I don't have admin access to so changing the registry is likely a non-starter.</p>

<p>Right now, I'm going through each port and sending a *<code>idn?\n</code> (which my program responds to with a specific string). For another device I have, I can search the possible connections for a port named [device serial number] and test that one first. </p>
 32126: <ol>
<li><p>If you read <a href="https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/11823/can-i-change-the-usb-device-name-of-arduino">this</a> So it says:</p>

<p>You'll have to change the software on the Arduino USB chip itself, 
and you may need to modify the drivers for the Arduino USB interface
on the computer side. It's not trivial, and probably not worth it.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Then according to this you need to toggle and tinker with the Driver software </p>

<ol start="2">
<li>Wait that means it is not the correct answer. So according to your plan you need to maybe toggle with IDE that is instead of manually changing the ports you want the software to identify on its own. So for that purpose you have to tweak with Arduino board bootloader, and say it send a message to the Arduino IDE on startup . After that you have to tweak with Arduino ide source codes and then tweak it to Search for that message and then it reads down the address that is its COM</li>
</ol>
 10394: <p>On Windows you can change the "Friendly names" assigned to devices and COM ports are devices.  The process is basically open the device manager, open the device properties, find the 'Device Key' and then locate that in the registry and change the 'Friendly Name' value.</p>

<p>See this page for more details:
<a href="https://www.eightforums.com/customization/15321-tutorial-how-change-device-names-device-manager.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.eightforums.com/customization/15321-tutorial-how-change-device-names-device-manager.html</a></p>
