Control Panel Serial Port Settings Are for Printing Only

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This article was previously published under Q114574

3.10 3.11
WINDOWS
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SUMMARY

The following basic serial port settings displayed in Control Panel reflect the default values for serial printers only:

Baud rate
Parity
Word length (data bits)
Stop bits
Type of port handshaking

These settings can be changed by choosing the Ports icon in Control Panel. Changes are reflected in the [ports] section of the WIN.INI file.

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The settings for baud rate, parity, word length, stop bits, and handshaking in the Control Panel Ports dialog box define the default values for serial printing.

To change these settings, run Control Panel and choose the Ports icon. Select the port that you want to change and choose the Settings button.

The Ports settings displayed in Control Panel are recorded in the [ports] section of the WIN.INI file. The following are the default values:

   [ports]
   COM1:=9600,n,8,1,x
   COM2:=9600,n,8,1,x
   COM3:=9600,n,8,1,x
   COM4:=9600,n,8,1,x

The following syntax is used for these settings:

Portname:=baud rate,parity,word length,stop bits,flow control

The possible values for flow control are "x" for Xon/Xoff, and "p" for hardware. If no value is listed, no flow control is selected.

IMPORTANT: These settings have no effect on modem communications, which are set by the individual application. Changing the baud rate in Control Panel, for example, does not change the speed available in a communications application, such as Terminal. Additionally, these Control Panel settings have no affect on the Microsoft At Work PC Fax utility included with Windows for Workgroups 3.11.

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