Cannot connect to the reader error when using PivKeyTool.exe

The PivKeyTool executable uses the first smart card reader it finds.  If you have multiple readers (or tokens), and the first reader it finds is not a PIVKey (or is empty), PIVKeyTool will show a "cannot connect to the reader! " error.

We recommend that you use only a single reader or token at a time. The order of readers is determined by the Windows PCSC interface.  This order can change and is not reliable.

However, if you must have multiple readers you can use the --reader PIVKeyTool option to direct it to a specific reader. For example:

pivkeytool.exe --listmd --reader "Identiv SCR3500 A Contact Reader 0"

You can get the name of the readers attached to your system by running:

certutil -scinfo