VB / MsComm ancient history question

[steely]

I'll throw this here for a nibble...I was searching VBExtreme.

am using mscomm to suck data into the port.
moved from older platform to win2000.
code now coughs and say port is open when I close it, and says it;s closed when I open it (or try to ) vb err's are 8005 and 8012.

ok, so maybe another app (not mine, and don't have a clue as to how to find out which) has control of the port already - don't know why - but -

if I simply change the port number, it works - does this make sense?
Haven't tried it (this fix) yet on the target machine (just my home pc).

if you have an idea - thanks,

Dan

[steely]

1. I found it

I hunted the tasks, and found some old UPS monitoring software - I removed it and the port was mine all mine.