Configuring Activesync to use COM Port 11?

[Don Tolson]

In the process of trying to get the original Belkin Bluetooth drivers to work on SP2 (which I've given up on now), I somehow deleted the original COM3 COM5 pair which Bluetooth used for incoming connections.

Now, when I re-install the Microsoft drivers, it establishes COM11 / COM13 as the incoming pair. Unfortunately, that's not an selectable option in Activesync running on my laptop. (Only COM3 or IR).

Any suggestions? Should I re-install ActiveSync?

(BTW, I've already tried deleting the partnership and starting that all over again.

Thanks.

[Darius Wey]

I doubt you would have that many COM ports running so there's always a high chance that some of the lower COM port numbers are not being used, yet Windows just cannot recognise that. If you are aware of any that aren't being used, you can reconfigure the COM11 / COM13 to use small numbers - COM3 and COM5 probably aren't being used since they were used in the past connection.

To change them, right click My Computer on your desktop or start menu, and select Manage. From there, select Device Manager and then navigate to Ports. Now if you expand it, you can select the relevant port and right-click it and select Properties. From there, select Port Settings, and press Advanced. Now you can select a COM port in the drop-down menu. Even if it says it's being used, if you are sure that it's not being used, just go ahead and overwrite the settings. I've been through this before and Windows just cannot get it's head around the fact that half the COM ports aren't being used. So as long as you sure you won't end up with conflicts, feel free to change it, and hopefully, things will be smooth sailing from there.

[Don Tolson]

That did the trick, Darius! Many thanks. I'm back in the blue!

[Don Tolson]

OK, I give up. It worked fine on Friday (thanks to Darius), but Monday morning, Activesync will not connect to my laptop via Bluetooth! Sheesh... nothing changed over the weekend, that I know of (except the Date!), and now, everytime I start up the laptop, Activesync pops up a window saying it can't find the devices, or they are invalid.

Looks like Activesync can't find the Bluetooth ports anymore.

BTW, everything else bluetooth on my laptop (keyboard, mouse, cell phone, etc.) works just fine.

Chalk one more up for Activestink! I wish they'd get this thing stabilized to work properly with Bluetooth. None of the other BT devices I work with has caused this much grief.

[Darius Wey]

Hmmm.... That's a new one.

Well, I can only suggest you try reinstalling ActiveSync and seeing if that solves the problem. Additionally, you could try removing your BT device, and inserting it again so it gives Windows a chance to "refresh" its driver state. If not, you can always use System Information to see which COM ports are being used, and indeed, if there is a conflict with your currently active COM port, you could try using another one for your BT port.

[Don Tolson]

Hmmm.... That's a new one.

Well, I can only suggest you try reinstalling ActiveSync and seeing if that solves the problem. Additionally, you could try removing your BT device, and inserting it again so it gives Windows a chance to "refresh" its driver state. If not, you can always use System Information to see which COM ports are being used, and indeed, if there is a conflict with your currently active COM port, you could try using another one for your BT port.

Hi Darius.. all really good suggestions, but already tried all them. Everything was working pretty well (except for Activesync dropping the connection when trying to transfer large files) until I tried to de-install the Microsoft drivers to replace them with the ones from Belkin. It was a very unsuccessful venture so now I'm trying to get the Microsoft ones to work.

I'm think my next attempt will be:
a) Uninstall Activesync
b) Unistall both the MS Belkin Bluetooth drivers and the Bluetooth Enumerator
c) Use Device Manager to remove all the COM ports, except those I KNOW are in use (COM1 and COM2).

Then, start all over again with the bluetooth dongle, then Activesync.

[Darius Wey]

Yes - that's a good idea. If that doesn't work, you can try reinstalling Windows again. Generally, I feel as though that once you have SP2 installed, trying to bring in 3rd party drivers can get a little messy. While the native SP2 BT support isn't as advanced as some other drivers out there, it does the job and you should consider leaving it to use the MS drivers in the future (consider this for the next time you format your computer :P). Best of luck - hope it all works out. :D

[Don Tolson]

Sorry, Darius.. but there's no way I'm going to re-install Windows. If my approach doesn't work, I'm giving up on Activesync over BT -- it just feels too much like it's been 'bandaided' together.

[felixdd]

So did you find a solution? I'm in a similar situation....

[Don Tolson]

Not yet.. life's been pretty busy the last couple of days. I'll try to get to it today or tonight and post my results.

[Don Tolson]

Sorry this has taken a while to get back to. Bottom line -- no luck. After removing the BT drivers and Activesync, disabling all COM ports, etc, then re-inserting the BT USB device (which caused XP to reload the drivers) and re-installing Activesync and re-establishing a new partnership...

The Bluetooth Manager on the Pocket PC says that the service discovery to the laptop failed when trying to establish an Activesync bluetooth connection. And Activesync on the laptop still complains every time I unplug the USB connection...

I give up.

[draiken]

I have a belkin bluetooth adapter and use it both on my pc at home and the computer at work.

If you are using SP2's support for buetooth, and you unplug the adapter, the serial ports become unassigned, even if you plug back in the adapter, it doesn't re-activate the serial ports, you have to reboot the computer with the adapter plugged in in order for windows to recognize and assign the serial ports correctly.

What I normally do in the work computer is put the pc into sleep or hibernation mode, and then unplug the adapter. The next day, I plug it back in, before waking it up.

[freitasm]

Sorry this has taken a while to get back to. Bottom line -- no luck. After removing the BT drivers and Activesync, disabling all COM ports, etc, then re-inserting the BT USB device (which caused XP to reload the drivers) and re-installing Activesync and re-establishing a new partnership...

The Bluetooth Manager on the Pocket PC says that the service discovery to the laptop failed when trying to establish an Activesync bluetooth connection. And Activesync on the laptop still complains every time I unplug the USB connection...

I give up.

When you say disabling the COM ports do you mean Removing from the Device list (Hardware tab on System aplet Control Panel)?

If no, then check this post on Geekzone (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=8&TopicId=422) and try again.

[felixdd]

EUREKA!
I solved all my problems with BT.

First of all -- the SP2 included BT drivers are rubbish. It is missing a lot of crucial services that would have been useful.

Secondly, widcomm drivers didn't work because you can't set the com ports manually -- well that's a half truth. In fact, you can; just that it involves fiddling with the registry a bit.

I suggest you start by reading this link: http://www.infralin.com/faq/bluetooth/BtComPortAllocation.htm

Pay specific attention to the bottom part:
Especially for Microsoft’s ActiveSync a lot of installation problems have been reported and I had my decent share of it. At first it worked without any problems, but after some other installations I could not get it to work anymore. The problem was (and often is with others) that ActiveSync only supports Com ports 1 – 9 and that many applications do not clean-up their com port allocations and blockings when de-installing itself. If all the Com ports in the range 1 - 9 have been allocated to (or blocked by) other applications, you’ll never get ActiveSync to work. The trick in this case is to manually de-allocate the com ports allocated by others. This is how to do this:

De-install the Bluetooth driver software and the Bluetooth applications.

See what com ports are still in use (using the registry key HKLM\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\SERIALCOMM) and update the ComDB registry entry as described above. This results in the following table for the first byte (the other 31 bytes should become/remain hexadecimal 00):

Highest com port used ComDB Hex value

3 07

4 0F

5 1F

6 3F

7 7F

Then delete all values for the Registry key:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\BTDriver\Enum

(I actually removed more entries from the registry, but I suppose this was the one that made the difference).

Both the blocking of the com ports and the deletion of this entry should have been handled by the de-installation process of course, but as with many other applications, the de-installation process of the typical Bluetooth drivers leaves a lot of rubbish behind.

Once this has been done you can install the BT driver and ActiveSync software again, following the normal installation procedure. It should now assign low numbered com ports again. You are advised to install ActiveSync before any other Bluetooth application making use of Com ports.

Essentially, widcomm sets the driver numbers so high because other programs don't bother to unlock their hold on the com ports. By removing and redefining the com port restrictions, my open BT com ports are now from 4-16...6 of which (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) can be used for BT AS.

Additionally, do what microsoft also says for removing previous instances of any bluetooth drivers you have: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883258

Before you start anything, read the entire part of the first link (it's important you know what you're doing), and then go try the widcomm drivers again!

[freitasm]

Very dangerous... You have deleted some other registry keys but not sure which one was the good one :roll:

Check my previous post (one before yours). The tips I have there is basically the same, but using Windows System Properties and Device Manager to accomplish the same - without touching the registry and possible mistakes.

[felixdd]

Very dangerous... You have deleted some other registry keys but not sure which one was the good one :roll:

Check my previous post (one before yours). The tips I have there is basically the same, but using Windows System Properties and Device Manager to accomplish the same - without touching the registry and possible mistakes.

The difference between that and what this guy did is that he cleans up the reg keys responsible for keeping track of which com port no. to start allocating new ports at. I found that it isn't enough (as original poster described) to just remove the com ports in device manager...you gotta go a bit deeper than that.

Although I too was a bit put-off by the person's "I did some other values too but this was the one that made the difference," I did what this person did and I am now up and running with the widcomm drivers and AS on port #5. I have a lot of other equipment strapped to my computer (2 other phone sync cables, IR, etc. etc.) so this is a godsend to me.