COM ports on XP with QB4.5

paul_nelson · Post by **paul_nelson** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 9:50 pm

I'm up against a brick wall, I think. I have production test equipment all over our factory that relies on continuously polling dataacquisition systems over a serial port. When I try to run this stuff under XP, the serial communication is erratic at best, sometimes being interrupted for seconds at a time. Under W98, or DOS6.22, the polls are continuous and smooth, reaching about 100/sec at 9600 baud. Under XP, I get less than a tenth of that, and that's just not gonna work. Tried everything I can find- compatibility modes, idle sensitivity, all that stuff- nothing works. Anyone with experience here? We're being forced into XP.... I could use 2000, but QuickBasic won't even open a COM port with 2000!

frankiebaby · Post by **frankiebaby** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 10:33 pm

well, u could always double- downgrade. Windows 98 with the explorer.exe replaced from win95 I heard is more stable than windows 98, and it would definately solve your com problems. I can only imagine the reason u want XP is stability. If the comp's only purpose is to use the com port for polling (if not, maybe u could make one) u could get away with only dos. uou could simply exit to true dos (use a boot disk?) and that may work, however, inconvenient. Best of Luck!

paul_nelson · Post by **paul_nelson** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 11:00 pm

Thanks for the reply!
Downgrading isn't an option, I'm afraid- our IT people are forcing XP down our throats because of the new "active directory" stuff, and they won't let a PC on the network unless it has either XP or 2000. And it'd take QUITE a long time to rewrite all of that stuff in VB....
It may be possible to set up an isolated LAN with PCs running 98 and get to our main network thru a host PC on XP, but don't know yet. That's messy, too.

Re: COM ports on XP with QB4.5

Re: COM ports on XP with QB4.5