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I am trying to learn the maximum number of serial ports that can be configured on Windows 7. Any information on this will be greatly appreciated. I'm having trouble finding this.
Rob
Posted 2012-10-30T16:53:04.683
Reputation: 135
How many serial ports can be configured in Windows 7?
Answers
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Windows 6.0+ support 256 Communications Port devices.
Chris S
Posted 2012-10-30T16:53:04.683
Reputation: 5 907
Thank you for the information. That's more than we'll need. Where did you get this information? I will need a reference in my documentation. – None – 2012-10-30T17:36:56.713
Honestly I don't know where or if MS has this documented. It's a definitely the current limit however. – Chris S – 2012-10-30T19:27:08.140
Windows has supported 256 ports since Windows 95, at least according to the API documentation. – John Gardeniers – 2012-10-30T19:31:06.633
@JohnGardeniers I think that's only for 32-bit apps; IIRC 16-bit are limited to 9... Do you have a link to something official looking? I couldn't find anything. – Chris S – 2012-10-30T20:53:13.423
You may be right. I don't have any references to hand but recall that I looked up the information when I was writing a comms program for Win95, which was obviously a few years ago. – John Gardeniers – 2012-10-30T23:08:06.260
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The maximum number of COM and LPT ports that Windows NT supports is 256. This is a limitation in Control Panel and does not represent a limitation of the hardware platform. In both Intel x86 and MIPS machines, the number of COM and LPT ports is only limited by available interrupts, I/O addresses and, ultimately, 4,294,967,295 (32 bits).
This link from Microsoft.com explains it well:
Behzad Sedighzadeh
Posted 2012-10-30T16:53:04.683
Reputation: 9
1Please quote the essential parts of the answer from the reference link(s), as the answer can become invalid if the linked page(s) change. – DavidPostill – 2016-12-11T12:51:44.623
How many do you really need? – Zoredache – 2012-10-30T17:05:24.977
We need to connect around 80 devices. – None – 2012-10-30T17:26:07.053
What kind of devices? Perhaps RS485 would be a better alternative. – Chris S – 2012-10-30T17:27:03.987
Unfortunately I am locked in to RS-232 due to hardware limitations. We are planning to proxy the serial port via Ethernet using third-party hardware. We are in the planning stages and I couldn't find the maximum number of ports I could configure. – None – 2012-10-30T17:32:26.493