Sent: 08/01/2008
From: Dave Williamson
Message:Using SysInternals Portmon on both the virtual machine and the host machine ...
when send and receiving data is going good the pattern is
IRP_MJ_WRITE
IOCTL_SERIAL_WAIT_ON_MASK
IRP_MJ_READ
IRP_MJ_WRITE
when it stops it always has done a IRP_MJ_WRITE but it is never followed by
a IOCTL_SERIAL_WAIT_ON_MASK. The program on the other end of the serial wire
never sees the data from the last IRP_MJ_WRITE.
(hardware handshaking at 57600,n,8,1)
"Mark Rae [MVP]" wrote:
Show quoted text
> "Dave Williamson" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in
> message news:(email address - cut out)...
>
> > The serial port problem is impacting our productivity significantly.
>
> What serial port problem?
>
>
> --
> Mark Rae
> ASP.NET MVP
> http://www.markrae.net
>
>
Sent: 08/01/2008
From: "Mark Rae [MVP]" <(email address - cut out)>
Message:"Dave Williamson" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in
message news:(email address - cut out)...
What serial port problem?
--
Mark Rae
ASP.NET MVP
http://www.markrae.net
Show quoted text
> The serial port problem is impacting our productivity significantly.
Sent: 08/02/2008
From: Bo Berglund <(email address - cut out)>
Message:On Fri, 1 Aug 2008 16:27:09 +0100, "Mark Rae [MVP]"
<(email address - cut out)> wrote:
For one I reported a serial port error while VPC2007 was in final beta
stage in beginning of 2007 but apparently the development team found
the report too late or were not interested so they did not handle it
until the release came out. :-(
I have also on numerous occations brought up this issue here with no
apparent reaction from the developers.
The error I saw was that software written to rely on serial port
events to receive the data stopped working when running in a guest
under VPC2007 while the same software in the same guest (a copy)
running under VPC2004SP1 ran just fine.
The guests I tested on were OS/2, Win2000Pro and XP-Pro. Same problem
everywhere.
I investigated this and found the cause to be the lack of the event on
incoming data. I changed a test application just to prove this such
that the incoming data was collected in a timer event rather than an
event from the serial port. This effectively implemented a polling
system of course, slowing down the transfers. But the application
immediately started to work again also in VPC2007.
Since I cannot change the actual software we use in VPC for
communications I had to install VPC2004SP1 side-by-side on my PC so I
can run the guests needing serial communications in VPC2004 (where it
works) and other guests in VPC2007.
However, I do not think it is possible to run both VPC2004 and VPC2007
*at the same time* to have one guest in VPC2004 and one in VPC2007
even though it is possible to install VPC2004 *after* VPC2007 has been
installed provided it is done into a different directory (custom
install).
--
Bo Berglund
Show quoted text
>"Dave Williamson" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in
>message news:(email address - cut out)...
>
>> The serial port problem is impacting our productivity significantly.
>
>What serial port problem?
Sent: 08/02/2008
From: "Mark Rae [MVP]" <(email address - cut out)>
Message:"Bo Berglund" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
news:(email address - cut out)...
Fair enough. It certainly does sound like a bug which was introduced in VPC
2007. I'll see what I can find out...
--
Mark Rae
ASP.NET MVP
http://www.markrae.net
Show quoted text
>>> The serial port problem is impacting our productivity significantly.
>>
>>What serial port problem?
>
> For one I reported a serial port error while VPC2007 was in final beta
> stage in beginning of 2007 but apparently the development team found
> the report too late or were not interested so they did not handle it
> until the release came out. :-(
>
> I have also on numerous occations brought up this issue here with no
> apparent reaction from the developers.
>
> The error I saw was that software written to rely on serial port
> events to receive the data stopped working when running in a guest
> under VPC2007 while the same software in the same guest (a copy)
> running under VPC2004SP1 ran just fine.
Sent: 08/04/2008
From: "Mark Rae [MVP]" <(email address - cut out)>
Message:"Mark Rae [MVP]" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
news:(email address - cut out)...
Straight from the horse' mouth, as it were...
I asked about this in the private MVP newsgroup:
And Ben replied thus:
--
Mark Rae
ASP.NET MVP
http://www.markrae.net
Show quoted text
> I'll see what I can find out...
> There's a thread in microsoft.public.virtualpc entitled "VPC and serial
> port fixes" which describes a possible bug introduced in VPC 2007
> concerning serial port functionality.
>
> Apparently, there was a bug report filed during the VPC 2007 beta stage,
> but nothing came of it...
>
> Can Ben or anyone else confirm that this is a bug and, if so, if a fix is
> in the pipeline...?
> Unfortunately, the serial port is very finicky in Virtual PC. With every
> release we spend a bunch of time trying to get different custom devices
> working with the serial port, but inevitably whenever we fix one device we
> break another.
>
> I will check to make sure that a bug is filed against it in the next
> release of Virtual PC, however I cannot make any guarantees here.
>
> Cheers,
> Benjamin Armstrong
> Windows Virtualization Program Manager
Sent: 08/05/2008
From: Dave Williamson
Message:Thanks.
"Mark Rae [MVP]" wrote:
Show quoted text
> "Mark Rae [MVP]" <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
> news:(email address - cut out)...
>
> > I'll see what I can find out...
>
> Straight from the horse' mouth, as it were...
>
> I asked about this in the private MVP newsgroup:
>
> > There's a thread in microsoft.public.virtualpc entitled "VPC and serial
> > port fixes" which describes a possible bug introduced in VPC 2007
> > concerning serial port functionality.
> >
> > Apparently, there was a bug report filed during the VPC 2007 beta stage,
> > but nothing came of it...
> >
> > Can Ben or anyone else confirm that this is a bug and, if so, if a fix is
> > in the pipeline...?
>
> And Ben replied thus:
>
> > Unfortunately, the serial port is very finicky in Virtual PC. With every
> > release we spend a bunch of time trying to get different custom devices
> > working with the serial port, but inevitably whenever we fix one device we
> > break another.
> >
> > I will check to make sure that a bug is filed against it in the next
> > release of Virtual PC, however I cannot make any guarantees here.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Benjamin Armstrong
> > Windows Virtualization Program Manager
>
>
>
> --
> Mark Rae
> ASP.NET MVP
> http://www.markrae.net
>
>
Wiki