mthrash

Hello everyone, first of all, I apologize if this is a repost, I looked at as many of the threads as I could but didn't see my problem solved. I have an Ipaq 4155 and have a desktop running XPP with a Zoom bluetooth usb adapter. When I first got the adapter I was able to get my bluetooth/activesynce up and running. However, when I decided to make the move to SP2 I didn't use the bluetooth to sync. One night I decided to use the bluetooth instead of the cradle again and realized that I couldn't get my bluetooth to work. While trying to fix this, I went through the steps several times to "add serial port" deleting it each time it didn't work. Much to my dismay, the com port number kept going up until I was on com16. I felt that sp2 was my problem and uninstalled. BT started working on my pc again and it could see my ipaq but now, when I go into Activesync to assign a com port it only gives me com1 and com2. When I go into my "ports" option in device driver, it says I have BT Com port (COM16), Com1, Com2, and ECP Printer port. The problem is that I can't find a way to delete/uninstall ports 3-16, nor can I find a way to have com16 an option in Activesync. If I rt click on COM1 (from device driver) and click on the "Port Settings" tab, then click on "Advanced", I get a drop down box for port number and it says that ports 2-15 are "in use". Any ideas on how to uninstall those?? Thanks to anyone who can help as I'm at wits end!

possum4

I Had same problem! Here's solution

he COM port database for XP/2k is at - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\COM Name Arbiter

The COM port database consists of a 32 integer array, with each bit (0 or 1) representing
whether a COM port is used.
To make the Bluetooth COM port start at a particular number, user needs to block all COM ports
below that number, install BTW to add the Bluetooth COM ports and reset the COM ports which we blocked.
So for example if you open up this Registry key and look at the "ComDB" element you may see
something like the following:

FF 1F 00 00 ... (NOTE: values are in hex, so change to binary where FF = 11111111, etc)

If you convert the values you see into binary (use the scientific calculator), each 0 or 1
will correspond to a COM port, if its free or used. I have COM ports 1 thru 13 that are used.
My registry looks like

FF 1F 00 00 ...

FF -> 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
COM PORT 8-7-6-5 4-3-2-1

1F -> 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1
COM PORT 16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9


Start from top right and go right to left, top to bottom and see which port is blocked or available.
The key is as follows:

1 is blocked
0 is available.

So to block COM ports until COM 5 and start at COM 6, the registry would be
1F 00 00 00.....

1F -> 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1
COM PORT 8-7-6-5 4-3-2-1

NOTE: You will need to un-install BTW before doing the registry modification. You will block off port 1 - 5,
install BTW, which should then start at COM 6, then free up COM Ports 4 and 5 so you can use them.