Just thought I'd share this in case anyone was interested and also had the same issues as me.
Current laptops with serial ports are getting harder to find and as we all know the USB serial option doesn't always work.
I currently use a HP elitebook 8640p running windows 7 64 bit, with virtual box and a quite a few XP / 2K and even some real Dos virtual machines to support the large amount of software I have to deal with. I'm using an Express Card that uses the OCPCIe952 chipset to give me a serial port, this actually uses the PCIe bus rather than the USB option which is also available in the express slot and with the port mapped thru virtual box to any of the machines I use even DOS I have had no issues at all, recently had to talk to some old Toshiba EX100's via the Dos based software and it was faultless so if anyone is interested this is the ebay item no. I bought 171078128032, the card is made by a company called HT-Link.com however providing the card uses the Oxford Chipset called oxpcie952 you should be fine with any manufacturer.
I do have to say it was the £20 I have spent, solved all my serial port issues.
Hope the above is some help to you guys
Dave
Current laptops with serial ports are getting harder to find and as we all know the USB serial option doesn't always work.
I currently use a HP elitebook 8640p running windows 7 64 bit, with virtual box and a quite a few XP / 2K and even some real Dos virtual machines to support the large amount of software I have to deal with. I'm using an Express Card that uses the OCPCIe952 chipset to give me a serial port, this actually uses the PCIe bus rather than the USB option which is also available in the express slot and with the port mapped thru virtual box to any of the machines I use even DOS I have had no issues at all, recently had to talk to some old Toshiba EX100's via the Dos based software and it was faultless so if anyone is interested this is the ebay item no. I bought 171078128032, the card is made by a company called HT-Link.com however providing the card uses the Oxford Chipset called oxpcie952 you should be fine with any manufacturer.
I do have to say it was the £20 I have spent, solved all my serial port issues.
Hope the above is some help to you guys
Dave
also I dont think most laptops even offer the express cards anymore