Digi Neo 8 Port Port Enumeration Automation?

Question

Is it possible to modify the number of the first wanted port of the Neo 4 or 8 Port? I wish to get an enumeration of COM11-COM18 by default. I must either modify by any way the INF? Or maybe Registry Key? I wish to automate and standardize the installation.

I tried to "search" and replace in registry without succes. Also, browsed the .INF but didn't find anything that may be a hint on port enumeration.

If anyone succeeded in this, any help would be appreciated. We have many servers with NEO/8 and I would like to remove the "Manual" enumeration from the installation procedure.

(If possible...)

Answer 1

I don't believe there's an "official", specific to the Neo, way to do this, but you should be able to by using the registry. Here's a website I found that should point you in the right direction.

http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/AppNotes/AN_132_Re-Assigning_COM_Port_Numbers_Using_Registry.pdf

Comments

Thanks Jeremym, this may be what I needed. I had tried to rename the ports in Registry but didn't knew about the "COM Name Arbiter" thing.  I will give it a try and follow up here for others.  Thanks for the hint!

Mathieu

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Yes, the "COM Name Arbiter" is the thing. The port and description must be modified and the "CNA" adjusted to let windows know the changes.  I build and app for our setup to test automation. Thanks for the clue, this CNA is an important thing to remember.

(For static configurations, it's possible to export .REG including the CNA and import them in installation process)

Answer 2

The following knowledge base article seems to address this:

http://knowledge.digi.com/articles/Knowledge_Base_Article/How-to-change-Neo-COM-port-assignments-in-Windows

Comments

Thanks for your answer but I'm able to enumerate the ports, I want to automate this process by any way if it's possible. We build monitoring servers from a standard image (With MDT) and the port assignation is inconsistent as it depend of the driver assignation priority in Windows.  The Intel Management engine is sometime initialized before the card and sometimes after.  So Enumeration gives different ports and the software break at launch as unable to open port.  Our servers have 4 onboard serial and the Intel Management (VPro) that create a virtual port. Port 1-5 are used by the computer. We wish to set the card to use Com11-Com18. This is easily done with the software but require manual intervention at a particular point in the computer assembly chain. If I can automate this, we will simplify the chain and would be wonderful.