USB for Windows-to-Windows communication

[mek363]

I am writing software for a Windows 10 IoT Embedded device that has an available USB 3.0 xHCI port. I would like to write another program that would run on a laptop and securely connect to the first device via USB to exchange data. Something like TCP/IP over USB seems like the right way to go, but I'm not sure if that is possible. What are my options for achieving this? Thanks.

[Jan Axelson]

Every USB communication is between a USB host and a USB device. Two hosts can communicate by connecting two devices back-to-back with a shared buffer, in other words:

USB host
USB device
shared buffer
USB device
USB host

To communicate with a device, the host uses a driver for a defined USB class or a vendor-specific driver.

One option for your application is to use two USB/serial converters and cross-connect the serial ports (null modem connection).

If you need higher throughput, you could program devices that use networking protocols.