Windows Err Msg: Unable to Initialize Ports (Control Panel) (83585)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows 3.0
  • Microsoft Windows 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows 3.11
This article was previously published under Q83585

SYMPTOMS

When you try to access the 386 Enhanced icon in the Control Panel, the following error may appear:
Unable to initialize ports
After this message is displayed, the 386 Enhanced window can be accessed; however, no ports appear in the Device Contention box.

CAUSE

This problem can be caused by either of the following:

  • There are no Base I/O address values in the BIOS table for any of the COM or parallel ports in the BIOS table.

    -or-
  • There is no DEVICE=*VCD statement in the [386Enh] section of the SYSTEM.INI.
NOTE: VCD is the virtual communications device driver that virtualizes the COM ports. It arbitrates COM port usage between virtual machines.

MORE INFORMATION

To check the Base I/O address values, proceed as follows:

  1. Type

    debug

  2. At the hyphen (-) prompt, type

    d40:0

    For example:

    debug -d40:0

    After you type debug d40:00, the following HEX string appears:

    0040:0000 F8 03 F8 02 00 00 00 00-78 03 00 00 00 00 00 0

    The values displayed may vary from machine to machine (the values listed above are the most common values).

    The error message occurs if all the values after 0040:0000 are zeros.
  3. To exit DEBUG, at the hyphen (-) prompt, type

    Q

Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:7/7/2005
Keywords:KB83585
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