Serial Ports in Vista?

[on.jolt]

I have 2 rs-232 serial printers, they work on my other computers when
plugged into the on-board serial ports. (echo hello > com2 [or
whatever comport i make it]) I need them to work in Vista.. I bought a
new computer that did not have any on board serial (except SATA which
will not help in anyway to this) so I decided to get a USB to db9
serial converter. I used the drivers it came with (95-ME/XP/2000-3/
NT) and had an assigned com port... I go into CMD and issue a 'echo
hello > com3', nothing, i do it about 5 times and then the printer
spits out:

'? ??????? ? ? ? ?????'

though it must have been some settings, well they where set fine
(9600,8,none) then i checked the pinouts on the wire, they where fine,
hooked it up to the old computer and it prints fine. This led me to
think the USB to Serial was not truly compatible...

Next I decided to get a PCI serial adapter (CyberSerial SIIG 4port)
installed the drivers (got the vista-32bit drivers from siig) got all
ports assigned COMs and the same thing... Whats going on? Is there a
fix to this?

 

[Michael Chare]

I have 2 rs-232 serial printers, they work on my other computers when
plugged into the on-board serial ports. (echo hello > com2 [or
whatever comport i make it]) I need them to work in Vista.. I bought a
new computer that did not have any on board serial (except SATA which
will not help in anyway to this) so I decided to get a USB to db9
serial converter. I used the drivers it came with (95-ME/XP/2000-3/
NT) and had an assigned com port... I go into CMD and issue a 'echo
hello > com3', nothing, i do it about 5 times and then the printer
spits out:

'? ??????? ? ? ? ?????'

though it must have been some settings, well they where set fine
(9600,8,none) then i checked the pinouts on the wire, they where fine,
hooked it up to the old computer and it prints fine. This led me to
think the USB to Serial was not truly compatible...

Next I decided to get a PCI serial adapter (CyberSerial SIIG 4port)
installed the drivers (got the vista-32bit drivers from siig) got all
ports assigned COMs and the same thing... Whats going on? Is there a
fix to this?

So do you have a printer driver that works with Vista?

I use a Sweex 1 Parallel/2 serial port card which Vista recognized because
it uses a MosChip chipset.

This Sweex product appears very much the same as the Syba products

http://www.syba.com/

 

[ONjOlt]

I have 2 rs-232serialprinters, they work on my other computers when
plugged into the on-boardserialports. (echo hello > com2 [or
whatever comport i make it]) I need them to work in Vista.. I bought a
new computer that did not have any on boardserial(except SATA which
will not help in anyway to this) so I decided to get a USB to db9
serialconverter. I used the drivers it came with (95-ME/XP/2000-3/
NT) and had an assigned com port... I go into CMD and issue a 'echo
hello > com3', nothing, i do it about 5 times and then the printer
spits out:

'? ??????? ? ? ? ?????'

though it must have been some settings, well they where set fine
(9600,8,none) then i checked the pinouts on the wire, they where fine,
hooked it up to the old computer and it prints fine. This led me to
think the USB toSerialwas not truly compatible...

Next I decided to get a PCIserialadapter (CyberSerial SIIG 4port)
installed the drivers (got the vista-32bit drivers from siig) got all
ports assigned COMs and the same thing... Whats going on? Is there a
fix to this?

So do you have a printer driver that works with Vista?

I use a Sweex 1 Parallel/2serialport card which Vista recognized because
it uses a MosChip chipset.

This Sweex product appears very much the same as the Syba products

http://www.syba.com/

Why do people keep insisting that there would be a print driver? It's
a basic Serial printer... get ther serial to work and thats it, echo
something here > COM2 and vola should print, it does on any other OS,
not vista it does '? ?????? ? ? ???' instead.

 

[Mellowed]

I have 2 rs-232serialprinters, they work on my other computers when
plugged into the on-boardserialports. (echo hello > com2 [or
whatever comport i make it]) I need them to work in Vista.. I bought a
new computer that did not have any on boardserial(except SATA which
will not help in anyway to this) so I decided to get a USB to db9
serialconverter. I used the drivers it came with (95-ME/XP/2000-3/
NT) and had an assigned com port... I go into CMD and issue a 'echo
hello > com3', nothing, i do it about 5 times and then the printer
spits out:

'? ??????? ? ? ? ?????'

though it must have been some settings, well they where set fine
(9600,8,none) then i checked the pinouts on the wire, they where fine,
hooked it up to the old computer and it prints fine. This led me to
think the USB toSerialwas not truly compatible...

Next I decided to get a PCIserialadapter (CyberSerial SIIG 4port)
installed the drivers (got the vista-32bit drivers from siig) got all
ports assigned COMs and the same thing... Whats going on? Is there a
fix to this?

So do you have a printer driver that works with Vista?

I use a Sweex 1 Parallel/2serialport card which Vista recognized because
it uses a MosChip chipset.

This Sweex product appears very much the same as the Syba products

http://www.syba.com/

Why do people keep insisting that there would be a print driver? It's
a basic Serial printer... get ther serial to work and thats it, echo
something here > COM2 and vola should print, it does on any other OS,
not vista it does '? ?????? ? ? ???' instead.

My serial port using Vista works.

 

[MattersNot]

I have 2 rs-232serialprinters, they work on my other computers when
plugged into the on-boardserialports. (echo hello > com2 [or
whatever comport i make it]) I need them to work in Vista.. I bought a
new computer that did not have any on boardserial(except SATA which
will not help in anyway to this) so I decided to get a USB to db9
serialconverter. I used the drivers it came with (95-ME/XP/2000-3/
NT) and had an assigned com port... I go into CMD and issue a 'echo
hello > com3', nothing, i do it about 5 times and then the printer
spits out:

'? ??????? ? ? ? ?????'

though it must have been some settings, well they where set fine
(9600,8,none) then i checked the pinouts on the wire, they where fine,
hooked it up to the old computer and it prints fine. This led me to
think the USB toSerialwas not truly compatible...

Have you hooked it up to the old computer using the usb to
serial adapter to confirm that it works that way?

Have you tried a parallel to serial adapter to see if that
works?

What kind of printer , brand and model, are you trying to
get working?

 

[Tom Lake]

Why do people keep insisting that there would be a print driver? It's

a basic Serial printer... get ther serial to work and thats it, echo
something here > COM2 and vola should print, it does on any other OS,
not vista it does '? ?????? ? ? ???' instead.

Not with a SiPix printer. Windows (including Vista) needs a driver for it
even though it's connected to the computer through a serial port. It does
work fine in Vista, however, when the driver is loaded.

Tom Lake