What is windoes doing?

[Todd Goodman]

On 11/19/2018 11:34 AM, dwight via cctalk wrote:
> I have a question. I use the USB port for serial. In my program, I use a fixed com port. When going to the control panel, I find that I see (in use) tags on some of the com ports. I'm the only one currently using the com ports but recently another (in use) showed up, requiring me to modify my program to use another com port. How does one unuse a com port? how do I find out what is using it so I can stop it? I'm using windows 7 professional. Has anyone else had this problem?
> Dwight
>
Windows "remembers" com ports of USB devices based on the VID/PID of the 
USB device.

This allows the same device (USB com port) to get the same COM 
assignment but means you end up with a ton of useless COM port 
reservations when you're using a large number of different USB COM devices.

Something like 
https://superuser.com/questions/408976/how-do-i-clean-up-com-ports-in-use 
has instructions for removing them in Windows 7.

I could have sworn I just uninstalled them from Device Manager but I 
forget now as it was a while ago.

Todd