HOWTO: Specify Serial Ports Larger than COM9

Summary

CreateFile() can be used to get a handle to a serial port. The "Win32 Programmer's Reference" entry for "CreateFile()" mentions that the share mode must be 0, the create parameter must be OPEN_EXISTING, and the template must be NULL.


CreateFile() is successful when you use "COM1" through "COM9" for the name of the file; however, the message

is returned if you use "COM10" or greater.


If the name of the port is \\.\COM10, the correct way to specify the serial port in a call to CreateFile() is as follows:


CreateFile(
"\\\\.\\COM10", // address of name of the communications device
fdwAccess, // access (read-write) mode
0, // share mode
NULL, // address of security descriptor
OPEN_EXISTING, // how to create
0, // file attributes
NULL // handle of file with attributes to copy
);

NOTES: This syntax also works for ports COM1 through COM9. Certain boards will let you choose the port names yourself. This syntax works for those names as well.