Is there anything more complicated than this for using a USB-RS232 cable to communicate with a piece of equipment?

[optoelectro]

Hi, we have a piece of equipment that is controlled by RS232. Unfortunately, my PC only has USB ports. If I use a USB-RS232 convertor like this one, will it essentially just be plug-and-play? Or, do I need something more 'active' (meaning, has some sort of chip in the convertor) ?

thank you!

[crossrulz]

Just plug it in.  You may have to install a driver for it.  But then it should just show up as a COM port and you can just send/recieve data via whatever COM port interface you use.