Re: Adding Serial Ports

The USB-to-serial adapter will have a driver to make it work. This driver creates a "virtual" COM port that will have a number just like any other COM port. If you already have COM1 and COM2 on your system and your modem is COM3, the virtual COM port will probably set itself up as COM4. In that case, you'd tell CDJ to look on COM4 for Slink-e. CDJ supports up to COM8 I believe, so you should have plenty of leeway. You find out how the virtual port is set up after you install it by going to Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, click the Devices tab and double-click the "Ports (COM and LPT)" setting. Boot the computer a few times to make sure the port sets itself up in the same way every time.

One note of caution: USB is still a slightly flaky standard, and anything connected via USB may exhibit somewhat flaky behavior. That is one reason I hesitated to recommend this solution during the earlier postings. Virtual COM ports set up through USB interfaces are prone to disappear for no reason and do other funky stuff. One way to try to prevent this is to download the absolute latest drivers for the adapter from the manufacturer's Web site, instead of using the drivers that come on disk in the box. But expect at least occasional problems, sometimes requiring a reinstallation of the driver.

I'm hoping Windows 2000 has more robust USB drivers and more robust support for virtual COM ports. Good luck in the meantime.