Installation of more than 4 COM ports in Windows 95, 98 & ME

In Windows 95, 98 & ME only 4 comm ports are detected and configured automatically. If more ports are installed, they need to be configured manually.

The following is the step-by-step description of the manual configuration process:

1. Choose Control Panel from the Start-setting menu.

2. Double-click "Add New Hardware"

3. Choose "Next"

4. Select "No" when it asks if you want to search for new hardware. (Windows 95, 98 or ME will not find the hardware anyway.)

5. Choose Next. On the following page, choose "Ports (COM & LPT)".

6. Double click on "Communications Port".

7. Please ignore the incorrect values displayed for base addresses. Instead, just choose "Next" and then "Finish". Now, the software driver for the added COM port is installed. However, the resource-settings for the base address is still incorrect. It needs to be corrected manually in the Device Manager.

8. Back in the Control Panel, double click on "System" and then choose the Tab "Device Manager".

9. In the Device Manager open the "Ports" section and choose the port we just added. Then, click on "Properties".

10. In the Properties of the newly added port, choose the "Resource" Tab.

11. If "Use automatic settings" is checked, uncheck it.

12. Change the "Setting based on" field to "Basic configuration 8".

13. Now, it is possible to change the address and IRQ settings to the correct value by clicking on "Input/Output Range" or "Interrupt Request" and then clicking the "Change Setting" button.

14. Leave the Device Manager with "OK", and then reboot the machine. After the reboot, you can view the settings again in the Device Manager. They will be correct now. If Windows finds a problem it will display a "!" beside the COM-Port.