"Armond Perretta" wrote in
:

I think you both are onto the explanation. I suspected that something
was hijacking the port so I restarted the machine and did not run
Capn, but instead tried ON Lite and SeaClear separately.
Unfortunately that didn't do the trick as the port still appears to be
closed to the other software. What would happen if I used an
additional USB-to-serial converter in another USB socket? Maybe I'll
try the next time I'm at the yard.



The Cap'n driver would load and hijack the port on Windows bootup when the
drivers load, not the startup apps. The port is reserved by the driver
very early in the process....

Try this non-destructive change.

Open Device Manager....

Click the + box next to USB Controllers and look for the driver Cap'n has
its name on or some USB-to-Serial driver which may be more generic. I've
never hunted this driver down, myself.

Open any USB controller driver that looks like The Cap'n and look at the
driver's author. There is a selector to DISABLE the driver without
uninstalling The Cap'n, which would free up the port so your other software
could access the USB data coming in. You can always re-ENABLE it to make
it work again for The Cap'n.

OK your way out and remember how you got there, then try the new softwares.

--
Larry