On: 27 Sep 03  19:58:00 Bill Birrell wrote to Charles Angelich:


 >     Can I pick your brains? I just changed the old desktop for a mini-tower 
 > with XP.  As it( XP) came out of the packet FrontDoor ran after a fashion, 
 > but after downloading all the updates, including ActiveX 9, there was 
 > suddenly no way to access or "open" the comms port. This meant that 
 > nothing would run.

Are you sure that is ActiveX 9 and not DirectX 9?  Actually, that shouldn't
affect the COM ports unless the software uses MSCOMM32.OCX.  Apparently
this control is being phased out as part of the shift to .NET.  It may be
obsolete on the latest patch level of Windows 5.1.x  a.k.a. XP (I dislike
the constant name changes and marketing gimmicks and prefer to go by the
version numbers which can be viewed from My Computer | Properties).

You can see if any of your software is using  MSCOMM32.OCX. by looking for
it in C:\Windows\System32\.  If it is there you may need to obtain a newer
version.  It also may be a case where there is no version available that
works with the latest Windows patch level. 

Microsoft is steering developers away from using the control.  Here is a
link to an article on how to access the COM ports in .NET.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvssamp/html/vbcs_usingthecomportinvbnet.asp

I have tried Windows v5.1.x and I have reverted to v5.0.x  I have found
that all of my software and hardware will run on 5.0 (a.k.a. Win2k)

Roger

--- Spinone v0.1.79 Win32