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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>I recently had a difficult problem that I was able to solve with <a href="https://theitbros.com/how-to-delete-com-ports-in-use/">https://theitbros.com/how-to-delete-com-ports-in-use/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The COM ports were showing when connected, and more or less used the same COM ports as before, but when applications such as Ham Radio Deluxe or Chirp tried to access the ports (USB Serial cables) or some other devices that are attached using XILINX FPGA tools, things went screwy. After an afternoon I called up RT Systems for help with their cables and they suggested I look for small utilities that could have placed a lock on the ports – and I found none. And when I disconnected everything, I was amazed to see the ports more or less still be present, even though things should have changed.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><br>The fix outlined above was easy to do, and a few minutes later, all was well with all COM ports freshly reconnected and passing traffic.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p>So, have fun. Also, I was amazed to learn that sysinternals tools are very useful for Windows hosts: <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><a href="https://live.sysinternals.com/"><span class=cf01><span style='font-size:11.0pt;color:blue'>https://live.sysinternals.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal> And process explorer gives more details than any other ‘explorer’ etc. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>73 de Samudra N3RDX<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>