Windows 7 - Usb and virtual com ports

Asked By Wall

09-May-07 09:08 AM

I have a usc check reader. When it installs it sets up a virtual com port.
Every time I connect it it increases the comport by one number, I am now up
to com 18. I have a utility that takes the input from this device and stuffs
it into the keyboard buffer. It only looks for the device up to com 16. Does
anyone have an idea how to reset the system to quit or start over with like
com4 ?????

Thanks
The device is a magtek mini micr.

The tech from the company advised me to do this;

The only way I have found to do this is to edit the registry.  What I do is
a search for one of the com ports. In this case you could use com18.  During
the search you should get a long list of com ports that I believe will be
under My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Ports.  You should be able to select each of these and
right click on it to delete the port.  I would delete ports 2 or lower and it
may be higher values than this depending on the physical and virtual comports
that are being used on your system by other equipment.  I would also create a
restore point on your pc prior to doing this or backup the registry in case
something goes wrong you can recover. After you reboot from this and plug the
reader into the computer the com port should be back down to a lower number.

It didn't work.

09-May-07 09:54 AM

it it increases the comport.
Does anyone have an idea how to reset the system to quit or start over
with like com4 <<

You can do it manually from the device manager... select "view hidden
devices" and simply delete all of the existing ones.

As far as forcing it to stay one one, not sure... sounds like the driver
is not registering itself properly... one trick I would try after you
clear all of the entries is to assure that you always connect to the
same usb port and see if that helps.

Tip... set up a desktop shortcut containing

%windir%\system32\devmgmt.msc

to open device manager using a single click or keystroke.

Beverly Howard [MS MVP-Mobile Devices]