C
As you know by now, the RS232 serial port is becoming extinct, at least in laptops. I keep an old one with real serial ports around for use when needed. Trying hard not to be a Luddite, I am using a newer laptop with W7 on it. I have lots of doodads and whatsits to connect to various gear using the blessed and beknighted USB kludge, and, as often as not it can be made to work, sometimes with only a little more screwing around than with RS232. There is still some needed software that adamantly refuses to recognize COM78:, and I have device manager pinned to the taskbar.
With this background in mind, my question is:
Is there some reasonably convenient way to deal with this mess? Windows doesn't put it's toys away when it's done with them. It remembers every driver/comport combination it has ever seen and often assigns a new one for things it has surely seen before. And it's happy to tell me they are all functioning properly, even when they're not. I think it would be a fair deal to blow them all away and wait out the seconds to reload and make a new link. I've googled and got a few hot tips on how to remove these one at a time, but if you connect to an assortment each day, before you know it, you're back to 75 COM ports again. Am I missing something elegant or is this what we have to live with for the honor of using Windows? I guess "normal" users wouldn't have as much of an issue, but if you are continually connecting to various things, it gets to be a pita. So how do you deal with it?
Regards
cww
With this background in mind, my question is:
Is there some reasonably convenient way to deal with this mess? Windows doesn't put it's toys away when it's done with them. It remembers every driver/comport combination it has ever seen and often assigns a new one for things it has surely seen before. And it's happy to tell me they are all functioning properly, even when they're not. I think it would be a fair deal to blow them all away and wait out the seconds to reload and make a new link. I've googled and got a few hot tips on how to remove these one at a time, but if you connect to an assortment each day, before you know it, you're back to 75 COM ports again. Am I missing something elegant or is this what we have to live with for the honor of using Windows? I guess "normal" users wouldn't have as much of an issue, but if you are continually connecting to various things, it gets to be a pita. So how do you deal with it?
Regards
cww