Comment from Brain2000  03/28/2000 07:42AM PST 

I modified the device driver so it supposedly would allow IRQ sharing.  Not only were PnP functions modified, but also some

 legacy functions.  Primary functions that I modified were IOConnectInterrupt() and IoReportDetectedDevice().  After 

applying the modified driver and rebooting the system, it turned out that my changes did absolutely nothing to remedy the 

situation.  Perhaps the driver cannot tell the OS to mark an  IRQ as sharable under Win 2000?  (This must be bug # 

44848477446373)



What did end up working is this:



First, I removed ALL serial ports in the hardware manager and rebooted the system.  I then added the first serial port 

MANUALLY.  NO, DO NOT LET THE SYSTEM DETECT IT!  (One would have thought that this is equivalent to turning off 

the "use automatic settings" option and entering the port/IRQ manually.  But that doesn't seem to work in this case).  Once 

the first port was added, I rebooted the system again.  After that, I added the 2nd serial port MANUALLY and rebooted the 

system again.  At this point, a very bizarre thing happened.  After the system came back up, the last 2 COM ports magically 

appeared and installed as PnP devices (where the first two serial ports are showing legacy devices).  Very bizarre, but all 

4 ports work together now.





Windows 2000 needs some serious help.  It will be a while before I switch to it.