Win2k COM Ports

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason Craft
  • Start date Start date
J

Jason Craft

Does anybody have a problem with Win2k COM Ports that are
connected to scales that work at first, say the first 15
minutes or so, and then after that first 15 minutes, the
scales cannot be accessed through the COM Ports. I have a
Windows 2000 workstation and a Windows 98 workstation.
The Win 98 machine does not have a problem, where the
Win2K machine does not see the scale. I have checked the
MS KB, the Scale Manufacturer Tech CD and everything
appears to be correct there. I have Even swapped the
machines to read the 2 scales and the same thing
happened. The error that I get is that the COM Port is
currently in use.
 
I'm experiencing the same problem. I run alot of
applications that require the use of the COM1 port for
program downloading. All but one application is designed
around the Windows OS. The other is an old DOS based
program and in all situations the COM port will suddenly
stop working. The Windows base applications will return an
error message indicating a COM failure and will allow the
user to "retry" to establish communications. This usually
works. On the DOS based program, it will "hang" at any
given time and will not return an error message which is
somewhat frustrating given the huge amount of data to be
downloaded.
I have checked and tweaked the port settings with no luck.
I have also checked for any conficts between applications
and the use of the COM port and have found nothing. This
problem also occurs when using COM Port 2.
 
gbrown said:
From the research I've done on MSDN it looks like there is no solution
Click to expand...
available to make MS-DOS COM ports used by our application programs
compatible with Windows 2000 or XP. The only option I've seen that might
work is a dual boot configuration. Check out MSDN Knowledge Base for
articles referencing Multibooting Windows 2000 and Windows XP. There are a
number of issues to consider in creating the necessary partitions on the
hard drive (FAT/FAT32/NTFS), the OS installation order, duplication of
files, and the risk to the existing Windows 2000/XP machine.
I have not tried this approch on my XP machine but I am aware of an
Click to expand...
instance here where a computer has dual boot DOS/NT4.0 to solve this
problem.
If you only need the basic functions of DOS, instead of installing it to
your hard drive, you might be able to simply use a bootable floppy disk or
even a bootable CD-ROM. Use a dummy machine to install and configure an old
DOS version with only the files you need, and then duplicate that on a
diskette or CD, and use the disk in the production machine.

VirtualPC may help you also.

--

Mike Brown
Asset Forwarding Corp.
EPA-compliant Electronics Recycling
DoD 5220.22-M Data Elimination
http://www.assetforwarding.com
 
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