Nortek Multi Parameter Probe

Recognize this ?

My Computer -> Properties ->Hardware -> Device Manager -> Ports:

I must have clicked my way to this screen hundreds of times. When you are a hardware developer and have to deal a lot with RS-232 devices, connected through a variety of USB to Serial converters you know what I mean. And certainly if you coupled your Bluetooth phone once, the COM port numbering goes berserk. So every time you connect a converter you end up in the device manager...
Tired of clicking I decided to create a simple program that does nothing else but show which COM ports are available and what their name is. Also it filters out the long list of virtual Bluetooth ports so you only see the actual hardware serial ports.



And this is how it looks:


It's a very lightweight program, based on .NET 2.0 so you will need to have this installed before you can run it. As you see there are only two buttons. The top one is the 'Refresh' button. Normally this should not be necessary since the software detects the plugging / unplugging of USB devices by itself. But if in doubt: try this button.
The second button may be used to show all COM ports, including the Bluetooth virtual com ports.

Sunday 11 November 2012

Version 1.1 - Fixed Windows 8 bug

Somehow SMYP did not work in (my installation of) Windows 8. So I have created version 1.1 which solves this problem.

Thursday 21 October 2010

Show Me Your Ports ! Released

It was on my computer for a while but I finally found time to make it 'public'. It's definitely not ground-breaking but it has served me very well for more than a year so I think it could be useful to others.
Huge credits go to 'jiggafied8' who published the article on The Code Project  that the core of this program is based on.