Windows 7 Ports missing from device manager

[jchino89]

Hi. I have a first generation envy 14 running windows 7 HP. Ports (COM and lpt) were showing up and working fine up until I reformatted the computer. I then noticed that they were gone. I installed all the drivers for my machine, most notably the chipset drivers, from the HP website. I enabled "show hidden devices" in device manager. I reformatted again, including trying windows 8 beta, and then back to 7.

I went through the bios to look for an option to turn ports on or off, and couldn't find it. So I updated to the latest bios and checked again, including finding a way into the advanced menu. I'm at a loss now... its like the ports don't exist?

Any ideas?

 

[Saltgrass]

If you are looking for printer ports, and probably the others, they seem to be in the Devices and Printers Dialog. Right click your printer, and choose the center Properties option, not the one on the bottom. You should be able to set up your ports there.

 

[capez]

This may sound silly but did you attach a device to either of the ports and then try looking for them? I had that problem with a prolific usb to serial port where it didn't show up untill I connected the device.

 

[jchino89]

I'm trying to use a USB-> printer-ish looking cable. When I get into the printer server properties menu I can't "configure port" for any of them because it tells me the port may be in use or may not exist. So windows doesn't seem to think COM1 through COM4 ports exist. I've had the device connected and nothing special happened.

 

[Saltgrass]

Do you show the window as in the attachment? If you do not have a port, you might be able to add one. Printer ports connected through USB ports may use the USB ports set to look like Printer ports. I do not have a USB printer, so I cannot check. But the printer install will normally set those up.