Knowledge Base

Installed Modem Detected as Serial Mouse on Restart

Article ID: 167394

Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q167394

SYMPTOMS

During the setup of Remote Access Service (RAS) on a Windows NT 4.0 server computer, a serial modem is installed and configured. When the server is restarted, the modem is detected as Microsoft Serial Mouse and the modem is no longer usable by RAS.

CAUSE

During startup of Windows NT, the NTDETECT program gathers information about the hardware installed on the system including pointing devices such as serial mice. If a mouse is detected, the system designates that port as a mouse port and does not allow it to be used for other purposes, such as a modem. Data is sent to the serial ports and the response from the modem is interpreted as the presence of a mouse. The system will attempt to load serial mouse software for that com port and prevent the use of the port for serial modems.

RESOLUTION

Edit the boot.ini file and add to the end of the "Operating Systems" lines one of the following;

   /NoSerialMice (This disables detection of Serial Mice on all COM ports

   /NoSerialMice:COMx (This disables detection of Serial Mice on only the
   COM port specified by x)

For additional information, please see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

ARTICLE-ID: 131976
TITLE : How to Disable Detection of Devices on Serial Ports

Keywords: kbprb kbsetup KB167394