Experience Installing OOPic IDE on WinXP Notebook (with no serial ports)
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(revised: 11/07/06)

Today, I installed OOPic IDE version 5.0.1 on my new WinXP notebook.
The notebook has no RS232 port, but does have 2/ea USB ports. I use
an IOGear GUC232A USB-to-RS232 serial port adapter to obtain serial
communications on this machine.

1. downloaded "port95nt.exe" and "OOPicFV501.exe" from the OOPic
   website ... < http://www.oopic.com/dloadp.html >.

2. installed port95nt.exe [although I didn't verify this was actually
   necessary].

3. installed oopic IDE v.5.0.1, and it wouldn't start due to missing 
   "comdlg32.ocx" error.

4. downloaded "setup_com32dlg_ocx.exe" from the oopic page, and ran
   it, but it didn't run properly. The screen just flashed, as it does
   when a Windows program tries to run but won't start up, and so
   nothing happened.

5. therefore, I transferred over "comdlg32.ocx" manually from the
   \windows\system of my Win98 machine, and moved it to the 
   \windows/system32 directory on the WinXP notebook. Now the OOPic 
   IDE started ok.

The missing file, "comdlg32.ocx", is a Visual Basic runtime module, 
and is available on our download page ....

< www.oricomtech.com/download.htm > 

and can also be found on various websites via google ... 

< www.google.com/custom?&q=comdlg32.ocx+download >

6. I connected my oopic board to the notebook via an I/OGear GUC232A 
   USB-RS232 adapter, which had been previously installed, including 
   drivers, on the notebook. 

7. after this, I was able to download programs ok using either COM1 or 
   COM4, which is how the USB-RS232 dongle is setup for accessing on 
   the notebook via the 2 USB ports. 

The OOPic IDE can both find the correct serial port using the 
"Tools - Cable Configuration - Find Serial Cable" menu option, and 
also perform serial downloading of programs properly.

I also did have to re-boot the notebook a couple of times along the way 
to get Windows to find the hardware/drivers properly after installation. 

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NOTE - the OOPic IDE will only recognize com-ports COM1 though COM4, so 
it may be necessary to change the port setting that the USB-to-RS232 
adapter maps into. On the Win98 machine, the drivers automatically 
mapped the adapter into a port number higher than COM4, and Win98 does
not allow this value to be re-set, so the USB-to-RS232 adapter was 
useless on that machine (which has regular RS232 serial ports to use). 

However, on WinXP machines the com-port value for the USB-RS232 adapter
can be changed using the Control Panel as follows .... select 
"Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Manager - Ports (COM & LPT)
- "USB bridge" (as per device installed) - Port Settings - Advanced", 
and finally the box appears for changing the com-port value.
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I haven't tried installing IDE v.6 yet, but so far, everything is go on 
the WinXP machine.