The K3 Utility closes the serial port handle (using the Win32 CloseHandle API call) when the program exits. I just verified this (again) with a debugger breakpoint.
Windows Process termination also closes all file handles that the program opens. However the actual release of the hardware for subsequent program access involves the USB to Serial adapter's device driver, which is specific to your hardware. This is why some users have no difficulty with this and others may. I'm not sure what else I could beyond making sure that the program closes the serial port. Which it does. Honest... Dick, K6KR -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Wes Stewart Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 9:09 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Elecraft] K3 Utility program issue I've been meaning to query the group about this for some time but the latest episode has finally prodded me into asking. I have noted before that when I ran the utility program after closing it and then trying to use my logging program, the log couldn't connect using the serial port. Apparently the utility wasn't releasing the serial port after having used it. Windows Task Manager would not show that the utility was still running, but it would take a reboot to fix the issue. Not only that, but Windows wouldn't shut down normally because it thought the utility was still running and wasn't responding. I would have to tell it to go ahead and close the utility. Last night afte reading one of the threads on this reflector I decided to read the release notes using the utility. The K3 wasn't even turned on and I obviously didn't try to address it with the program. After reading the notes, I closed the program, decided to go to bed, started the Windows shut down and left the room. This morning I came in and discovered that the computer was still up, didn't think much of it until I tried to open the logging program and got the "I can't connect to the radio" error. So even though I never used it, the utility apparently captured the serial port and I had to go through the whole process of manually shutting down Windows to get back to normal. For the record, I'm running a Lenovo T400 with WinXP Pro SP3 and a Quatech USB->Serial interface. Anyone else have this problem? Wes N7WS ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
