Two clicks to program a PIC

Sometimes you end up having to program a device with many different types of firmware. For a project I’ve used PICs on, this was the case. Here’s how to setup things so that all it requires is two clicks to load the firmware from windows explorer.

This trick uses the CCS ICD-64U programmer (it will probably work with any of their programmers). We first create a batch file (with a nice name like PIC.bat) in our favorite text editor that calls the loader and then pauses so we can read the output. You may have to adjust the location of the executable depending on your installation location.

Next copy the batch file into %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo and you’re done. Now find a firmware file, right click on it and then you should have the batch file listed as an option.