I have already touched on how you can make your serial port run faster. However, some users have reported that their settings reverted to the default values after they restarted their systems. Personally, I have never experienced this problem.

Matt pointed me to the Microsoft Q293762 article - Com Port Settings Reset to Default After Making Changes in Device Manager. And surprisingly, Microsoft is listing this as a problem for all current versions of Windows 2000! Apparently, the serial port settings automatically revert to default when the computer is restarted. Why they made it so, I don't know and I have no idea why I never experienced this problem so far.

In any case, here's how you can make your serial port settings permanent when Windows 2000 is automatically resetting them to default values whenever you restart the computer :-

1. Open up Windows Explorer and head over to the Startup folder (the path is usually drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup)
     
2. Right click anywhere in the main Explorer window and select New -> Shortcut.

3. The Create Shortcut screen will pop up.

4. In the space where you are supposed to type in the location of the item, type drive:\WINNT\system32\mode.com com(port number): (baud rate in bps),(parity - y/n),(data bits - 4/5/6/7/8),(stop bits - 1/1.5/2).
    
5. This means that if you want to set Com1 to a baud rate (port speed) of 115,200 bps, no parity with 8 bits of data and a single stop bit, the correct command should be drive:\WINNT\system32\mode.com com1: 115200,n,8,1
    
6. You should not leave any space between the commas.
     
7. Once you are done, click on Next >.

8. In the this screen, just type in a suitable name, i.e. COM Port 1 Settings and click on the Next > button.

10. Next, simply select an icon you like and click Finish.
     
11. The Startup folder should now display the new shortcut (see below). It's almost done now. Just a few more steps to go.

12. Now, right-click on the new shortcut and select Properties.

13. In the Properties screen that pops up, go to the Program tab.

14. Look for the Run option and select Minimized.
     
15. Finally, click OK and you're set!
      
16. With that done, Windows 2000 will automatically load up those custom COM port settings during startup. So, your serial ports will always have the proper settings even if Windows 2000 automatically resets them when you restart your computer.
      
    Thanks to Matt for alerting me to the problem and solution!

Notes

• This only works for a single COM port so if you want to maintain different settings for all your COM ports, you will need to create separate shortcuts for each COM port.
    
• To remove those settings, all you need to do is delete the shortcut and restart your computer.

If you have a comment or question about this tip, please post them here.

Thanks for your time and I hope this tip has helped you some! :)

Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/