Q:

Serial communication (for Arduino) using Visual Studio 2008 and C

I want to send data to my Arduino board using Visual Studio and C.
I specifically need to use C since I am using ARToolKit to get markers and sending the data accordingly.
I was trying the code
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
void main()
{
    system( "MODE COM9: BAUD=9600 PARITY=n DATA=8 STOP=1" ) ;
    FILE port = fopen( "COM9:", "wb" ) ;
    printf("hello");
    fprintf( port, "s" ) ;
    fclose( port ) ;
}

but it is not getting compiled.
I just need to send data.

A:

I understood from your post that you need to send data using visual studio not to write a program to flash or any other stuff. Here is an example i made for you on my machine it works sending the text test.
#include "stdafx.h"
#include <Windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    char test[] = "Hello";

    HANDLE hDevice = CreateFile(L"COM2",GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE,FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE,NULL,OPEN_EXISTING,0,0);

    if (hDevice !=INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
    {
        printf("Port opened! \n");
        DCB lpTest;
        GetCommState(hDevice,&lpTest);
        lpTest.BaudRate = CBR_9600;
        lpTest.ByteSize = 8;
        lpTest.Parity = NOPARITY;
        lpTest.StopBits = ONESTOPBIT;
        SetCommState(hDevice,&lpTest);

        DWORD btsIO;

        WriteFile(hDevice,test,strlen(test),&btsIO,NULL);

        CloseHandle(hDevice);
    }
    _getch();

    return 0;
}

