This is definitely a driver problem. Computer crashes when breaking serial connections is a quite old problem, and it’s crazy that this hasn’t been resolved by Particle. Their driver is dated from 2014, and as others have pointed out it isn’t necessary on Win 10.
Confirmed that Win 10 no longer crashes once Particle’s driver is uninstalled and deleted from the system, as per @embedded’s and @ScruffR’s reports.
Particle should really remove this driver from the install process.
I purposely have not installed CLI on my PC because of this issue. I use another computer if I ever need CLI for anything. Its been well over a year and I forgot all about this and installed CLI again on my new PC, and sure enough WDF_VIOLATION, BSOD!
I removed the driver and that took care of it so I came here seeif if they ever found a fix and hit this post, which I am glad they did, but sheesh its been over a year and they have not removed the driver from the install yet, now have they even fixed the driver for that matter. What gives ?
I highly recommend removing the Particle serial driver on Windows 10. This will solve the WDF_VIOLATION.
A future version of the CLI will do this automatically, but for now these steps will allow you to do it. It’s a little tricky and you have to make sure you follow the steps exactly, otherwise the old driver can come back again.