Microsoft KB Archive/83585

{|
 * width="100%"|

Windows Err Msg: Unable to Initialize Ports (Control Panel)

 * }

Q83585

-

The information in this article applies to:


 * Microsoft Windows versions 3.0, 3.0a, 3.1, 3.11

-

SYMPTOMS
When you try to access the 386 Enhanced icon in the Control Panel, the following error may appear:

Unable to initialize ports

After this message is displayed, the 386 Enhanced window can be accessed; however, no ports appear in the Device Contention box.

CAUSES
This problem can be caused by either of the following:


 * There are no Base I/O address values in the BIOS table for any of the COM or parallel ports in the BIOS table.

-or-
 * There is no DEVICE=*VCD statement in the [386Enh] section of the SYSTEM.INI.

NOTE: VCD is the virtual communications device driver that virtualizes the COM ports. It arbitrates COM port usage between virtual machines.

MORE INFORMATION
To check the Base I/O address values, proceed as follows:

  Type "debug"  At the hyphen (-) prompt, type "d40:0" For example: "debug -d40:0" After you type debug d40:00, the following HEX string appears: "0040:0000 F8 03 F8 02 00 00 00 00-78 03 00 00 00 00 00 0" The values displayed may vary from machine to machine (the values listed above are the most common values).

The error message occurs if all the values after 0040:0000 are zeros.   To exit DEBUG, at the hyphen (-) prompt, type "Q"

Additional query words: 3.0 3.0a 3.1

Keywords :

Issue type :

Technology : kbWin3xSearch kbWin300 kbWin300a kbWin310 kbWin311