Device/Port already open?

We use a few programs at work which rely on the comm1 port (for RS232) but after starting the PC the port is already open.

Hyperterminal for instance says,
"Another program is using the telephony device"

The others tend to report, "Port already open"


There seems to be no reason why the port gets opened.
We have no programs running at startup which use the port.

(I have checked the usual places where programs auto-run)

So, is there a utility to see what program is using the port or at least some tool to force it to close?

Jim,

The only thing I can think of is to try something like Mcafee to tell you what is trying to open the port.

IPete2.

something to check: if you have/had an external faxmodem, some of them run a program or driver in the background monitoring the COM port for incoming faxes, preventing other use.

You could manually assign the com port number to 3 or 4(or 30 if you like it) in device manager, just to see what happens (if this program just use the first port or the one labelled COM1).

I used to get this a lot back in the day and the culprit was (if I rember correctly) the Microsoft Fax software nabbing the port and my modem could not connect.

Not had it since movig to Broadband though.

Cheers

Garion