HELP - DUPLICATE COM & LPT PORTS

[Fred Goldberg]

If I check the properties of any printer (START/Settings/Printers and
Faxes) and click on PORTS I see 2 each of all the following ports: COM1,
COM2 COM3, COM4, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3 and FILE. FILE may or may not be related
to the problem. Under Device Manager, everything looks normal (no dups).

This is causing a problem with my "Intuit Internal Printer" (a PDF printer)
so that it will no longer work. It uses a COM1 setting. I believe the
problem started when I installed the ZAN Image Printer (comverts an html
file to a tiff file).

I have uninstalled the ZAN Image Printer and Adobe Acrobat and deleted the
Intuit Internal Printer followed by running both Symantec's WinDoctor and
Advanced System Optimizer's Registry Cleaner. I also deleted the COM and
LPT ports with Device Manager and rebooted.

The duplicate ports reappeared. Other than reinstalling Windows (Gee - I
hope not), I don't have any clue as to a resolution. I suspect a registry
issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Fred

 

[Jerry]

Boot into Safe Mode, open Device Manager, delete ALL instances of the LPT
and COM ports you find, reboot and Windows will find them and install the
drivers.

 

[Fred Goldberg]

Thanks Jerry. But, as I said below, I already did that. Under device
manager, both before and after deleting and re-booting, everything looks
fine. The only thing that does not look fine, and is indicative of this
problem, is the duplicate ports listed on the Properties/Ports tab of all
printers. I assume this is being derived from somewhere in the registry.

Fred