Meindert, Thank you, I have downloaded the virtualplex demo and am
having trouble getting the programs to recognize the virtual com
ports. I have restarted a couple of times and find that 1. device
manager does not see the virtual com ports,

Correct. This is because they are not linked to hardware devices and because
of the way the program creates these ports.

But every normal windows program should be able to open the ports. If they
are not listed in a port selection dialog, it is because of the way programs
find out which ports are present in a system. There is no uniform way to do
that and several methods do or don't come up with virtual ports.

airmail was told that the master port was busy.

Which is correct, since VirtualPlex opens the master port. So all other apps
should open one of the created virtual ports.

Regards,
Meindert