Using serial ports with WS 7.1.3 on Win7X64

[BobAgi]

I have a problem with serial communications on an XP-Pro guest running under Workstation 7.1.3 on a Win7-Pro X64 laptop.

I have 1 serial port in the docking station (COM1) and when I use this as the port to map to the guest it seems to work OK.

But then I have to have another physical PC to implement the other end of the communications line (only a single com port available on the new laptop and this is on the HP docking station).

So I bought a USB connected 4-way RS232 SUNIX ComHub today in order to use some of the ports for the guest and some for my host.

Then the plan was that I will run the communications program on my host, which is talking through a nullmodem cable to the program on my guest. So both host and guest use different parts of the ComHub.

But nothing works and I have now gotten down to using HyperTerminal in both host and guest to try to figure out the problem.

If I start two HT on the host itself and use one of the ports for each HT then they can talk to each other just fine.

But if I move the null-modem cable to a port that has been mapped to the guest (where another hyperterminal is running), then as soon as I type anything into the host hyperterminal I get an error box from VMWare Workstation saying:

"serial0: Unable to read from the "COM6" serial port: Overlapped I/O operation is in progress"

This message is repeated a number of times in the message box and then finally in the bottom there is:

"The device will be disconnected"

Note: Before I got this Win7X64 laptop I was using another HP laptop with XP-Pro SP3 and WorkStation 7.1.3.

In this setting I could assign a USB connected RS232 com port as a port in my guests and it worked fine.

So I expected it to work also now....

QUESTIONS:

1) Has anyone succeeded in mapping a USB connected COM port on the host to a guest with WS 7.1.2 on Win7X64??

2) Has anyone succeeded to use the SUNIX UTS2009P4 ComHub on the host as mappable COM ports for the guests (with any operating system on the host)??

This is driving me nuts because I use the laptop for software development and the virtual guest is needed because it must be on an XP operating system. I can't use the COM1 in the docking station, because I can't carry the docking station along when I move, it is on my office desk and hence only available there. The ComHub on the other hand is conveniently small and I can travel with it.

Only just now it seems to not work in this context.....

TIA

[continuum]

Hi
first things first
WS 7.1.3 per default enables Thinprint which occupies COM1 inside the VM.

Please remove Thinprint - then try again.
If it still fails reproduce the problem and attach the vmware.log afterwards

[BobAgi]

What is "Thinprint"?

How can I find it?

How do I remove it?

I have looked in Add-Remove programs in the guest but there is nothing there I can define as "Thinprint" at least...

[continuum]

check menu > VM > settings > options > thinprint

[BobAgi]

No "thinprint" visible here....

[continuum]

???
please post the vmx-file

[BobAgi]

Here it is:

.encoding = "windows-1252"
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "7"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
memsize = "1024"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "Polaris2_hdd160.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"
usb.present = "TRUE"
ehci.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.fileName = "-1"
sound.autodetect = "TRUE"
svga.autodetect = "TRUE"
pciBridge0.present = "TRUE"
mks.keyboardFilter = "allow"
displayName = "POLARIS-2"
guestOS = "winxppro"
nvram = "POLARIS-2.nvram"
deploymentPlatform = "windows"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
tools.upgrade.policy = "useGlobal"
mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"
usb.generic.allowHID = TRUE

ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
extendedConfigFile = "POLARIS-2.vmxf"

ide1:0.startConnected = "FALSE"
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d 52 42 7c 05 f0 b6-5a 02 83 0e 71 1b e9 0f"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 26 e0 f4 c7 9e f7-5c 44 92 45 c3 ba 6d f6"
ide0:0.redo = ""
usb.autoConnect.device0 = ""
pciBridge0.pciSlotNumber = "17"
scsi0.pciSlotNumber = "16"
ethernet0.pciSlotNumber = "32"
sound.pciSlotNumber = "33"
ehci.pciSlotNumber = "34"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:ba:6d:f6"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.present = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.enabled = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.readAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.writeAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.hostPath = "N:\SharedPolaris2"
sharedFolder0.guestName = "PolarisHost"
sharedFolder0.expiration = "never"
sharedFolder.maxNum = "2"

sharedFolder1.present = "TRUE"
sharedFolder1.enabled = "TRUE"
sharedFolder1.readAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder1.writeAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder1.hostPath = "C:\Engineering"
sharedFolder1.guestName = "Engineering"
sharedFolder1.expiration = "never"

ethernet1.present = "TRUE"
ethernet1.connectionType = "hostonly"
ethernet1.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"

ethernet1.addressType = "generated"
ethernet1.pciSlotNumber = "35"
ethernet1.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:ba:6d:00"
ethernet1.generatedAddressOffset = "10"

checkpoint.vmState = ""

tools.remindInstall = "FALSE"

ethernet2.present = "TRUE"
ethernet2.connectionType = "nat"
ethernet2.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"

ethernet2.addressType = "generated"
ethernet2.pciSlotNumber = "36"
ethernet2.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:ba:6d:0a"
ethernet2.generatedAddressOffset = "20"

ethernet1.startConnected = "FALSE"
ethernet2.startConnected = "FALSE"

vmotion.checkpointFBSize = "134217728"

pciBridge4.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge4.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge4.pciSlotNumber = "21"
pciBridge4.functions = "8"
pciBridge5.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge5.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge5.pciSlotNumber = "22"
pciBridge5.functions = "8"
pciBridge6.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge6.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge6.pciSlotNumber = "23"
pciBridge6.functions = "8"
pciBridge7.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge7.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge7.pciSlotNumber = "24"
pciBridge7.functions = "8"
vmci0.present = "TRUE"

mks.enable3d = "TRUE"

usb.pciSlotNumber = "37"
vmci0.pciSlotNumber = "38"
vmci0.id = "-1011192330"

usb:0.present = "TRUE"
usb:1.present = "TRUE"
usb:1.deviceType = "hub"
usb:0.deviceType = "mouse"

ethernet0.linkStatePropagation.enable = "TRUE"

bios.forceSetupOnce = "FALSE"

cleanShutdown = "FALSE"
replay.supported = "FALSE"
unity.wasCapable = "TRUE"
replay.filename = ""
serial0.present = "TRUE"
serial0.fileName = "COM1"
serial0.autodetect = "FALSE"
serial0.startConnected = "FALSE"
numvcpus = "2"
cpuid.coresPerSocket = "2"
serial1.present = "TRUE"
serial1.startConnected = "FALSE"
serial1.fileName = "COM7"
ide0:1.present = "FALSE"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"

[continuum]

ok - com1 is NOT configured for Thinprint - but you have both ports disconnected - is that what you want ?

do you connect later ?

[BobAgi]

I connect the two serial ports when I need them and at that time I can also select which physical port to use on the host.

I have found that if I select a "real" com port on the host then communications are almost always stable.

But unfortunately my laptop has a real COM port only when it is docked (like now). As soon as I undock I do not have a real port, but am forced to use the USB-Serial adapters.

What bugs me is that it does not really work now.

Before I got this laptop last December I had an XP-Pro laptop (both HP Mobile Workstations) and there I had no problems at all with the USB-RS232 converters. I have used several at a time connected via a DELTACO USB hub to the host and then mapped over to COM1 and COM2 on the guest.

No problems at all. But then I used WorkStation 7.1.2 (I believe) and it was the 32 bit version of VMWare. And my old laptop did not have VT in the CPU.

But I had no problems whatsoever with RS232 comms, so that is why I am so surprised that with my new and considreably more capable laptop things that used to work do not any more....