Some piece of software or some driver appears to be using the serial ports COM3-COM49.
New COM ports for Bluetooth et al get assigned ridiculous numbers over 50. When I try to change the number, Windows claim that the lower COM port number is in use, and suggest that I don't apply new settings. However, ActiveSync docs say that COM port number must be 20 or lower.
I have no idea where to look to figure out what's reserving the all those COM port numbers. What other ways do I have for uninstalling devices that don't appear in device manager? How do I figure out what took over those COM port IDs?
1 Answer
Go to My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Environment Variables, and make a System variable named
devmgr_show_nonpresent_devicesMake its value 1.
Now go to device manager, view, and check Show Hidden Devices.
Now expand Ports(COM & LPT). You'll see more ports than you did before. Right-click on and Uninstall whichever of the greyed-out ports you don't want.
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