Vista & Serial Ports

GeForce · 1 Feb 2009 at 19:36

Evening all,

Got a couple of USB-Serial adaptors here, but I'm using quite old software that doesn't like COM ports above COM9.

Looking in device manager, I see this:

But when trying to change one of the USB/Serials (COM10 or COM18) to a lower number, I get this:

I can't see anything that's using ports COM3-9, any way to find out?

COM1 and COM2 are real hardware ports.

Cheers all,
Jon

IAmATeaf · 1 Feb 2009 at 21:26

Do you have any software such as blackberry desktop manager etc.. as they normally create a host of pseudo COM ports. Also have you tried disabling 1 of the real hardware ports to see if you temporarily use that?

GeForce · 1 Feb 2009 at 22:35

Cheers for the reply. Haven't got any software that should be taking up the ports.

Anyway I set the USB/Serial adapter to COM5 and it warned me about making other apps not work. But I agreed anyway and restarted the machine, and now it's fine! Running quite happily on COM5.

Thanks again

RobH · 2 Feb 2009 at 01:34

If anyone is curious these adapters run fine on Vista x64 too, I have some random generic branded Chinese one and the drivers work fine. I run a GPS serial link off mine, a lot of devices are okay on the USB to Serial adapter but some such as Microcontroller programmers won't work as they require the high voltages.