Disabling superfluous com ports

[Sailornono]

I'm looking for a way to disable some superfluous com ports in order to increase the number of free ports (for incoming bluetooth devices); mainly the infrared port which i have never used so far.
I think i saw something about that somewhere but a google search does not give any results.
does anyone know?

cheers

[awm129]

You can take thier driver entries out of the registry, then they'll never be loaded. Check out HKLM\drivers\builtin and just delete keys that you don't need. Of course that all goes away after a hard reset....


BTW, why do you need to do this? As I understand it, the bluetooth chipset monitors connected devices completely independently from the COM port setup. The number of COM ports on your device shouldn't limit the number of bluetooth devices you can manage. And I think there is a max of like 7 BT devices you can have connected. Maybe I'm wrong... goodluck!

[awm129]

You can take thier driver entries out of the registry, then they'll never be loaded. Check out HKLM\drivers\builtin and just delete keys that you don't need. Of course that all goes away after a hard reset....


BTW, why do you need to do this? As I understand it, the bluetooth chipset monitors connected devices completely independently from the COM port setup. The number of COM ports on your device shouldn't limit the number of bluetooth devices you can manage. And I think there is a max of like 7 BT devices you can have connected. Maybe I'm wrong... goodluck!

[underwurlde]

Yo!

This may be related to something called 'Ghosted' or hidden ports...
(read this: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;315539)

The MS site above basically says to do this:

Right-click My Computer.
Click Properties.
Click the Advanced (tab).
Click the Environment Variables (tab).
Set the variables in the System Variables box. Click New: Variable name: devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices, Variable Value: 1
Reset PC.

++++++++++++++

Now to delete those nasty COM ports (now that we can SEE THEM!!!)...

Right Click 'My Computer' -> Properties, Hardware Tab -> Device Manager.

View -> Show Hidden Devices

You can now expand the 'Ports(COM & LPT)' tree and see all those extra nasty COM ports: Right click & select 'uninstall' to remove each individually.

Et Viola?

Andy

[underwurlde]

@awm129,

You would want to do this if you're trying to ActiveSync using BT: There is a 'bug' (restriction?) in AS that means that you can only use COM ports in the range of COM0 to COM9 - Now if your PC that can use COM1 to COM255 (which, stupidily enough, can only assign itself sequential port numbers) is stuck at say COM17, you're buggered (Like I was)!

Now if you think I spouting crap then GREAT - I would love for you to say 'Andy dude, you're spouting crap mate, let me educate you'... :wink:

I say this because a mate of mine said that you >don't< have to match COM ports - i.e. think real world - Just because COM ports on the back of devices are numbered differently, doesn't mean you can't connect them together... The jury's out on this one :?

Andy

[StevePritchard]

Aren't you guys getting confused - I think he's talking about COM ports on his Universal, not on his PC...

Cheers,

Steve.