CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netusbregistryserial-port
John NoCookies
John NoCookies

Reputation: 1061

Discover serial ports in C#

I'm writing an application that communicates by sending bytes to the USB port. I'd like to allow the user to choose the port and to do that, I use SerialPort.GetPortNames(). Unfortunately, it returns an empty array. The method supposedly reads the registry for data (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\SERIALCOMM), but the SERIALCOMM directory is missing. When I run the program on Linux, it lists my four USB ports, as expected. How can I fix the registry/discover the ports in a different way?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 4149

Answers (3)

Markus Jarderot
Markus Jarderot

Reputation: 89231

You could use Management Objects to query available COM ports. The interesting tables are:

You can explore these namespaces in the WMI Code Creator, and generate VBScript/VB/C# code.

Upvotes: 2

rfmodulator
rfmodulator

Reputation: 3738

SerialPort.GetPortNames() returns the list of COM ports install on the machine, not USB ports. I don't think Windows will provide you with a list of USB ports, only USB devices that are available.

Despite the name "Universal Serial Bus", they are not "Serial Ports" in the convential meaning.

Upvotes: 1

Espen Burud
Espen Burud

Reputation: 1881

The SerialPort.GetPortNames() are the correct method to discover serial ports. But if you are using Windows 7, I think it could be issues with permissions on the registry keys this method lists. I found a post which describe this problem at Microsoft.com.

Upvotes: 1

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