Manual Number: 00650-146-1
Page 5
Windows NT 4.0 Installation Instructions for the PCI-COM485/8
Unlike Windows95, NT is not a plug-and-play compliant Operating System. Windows NT will not
auto-detect and install new hardware devices. Therefore, in order to tell Windows NT that you
have installed eight new COM ports, you must use the utilities provided by NT in the Control
Panel.
Once you have installed the card in the computer and the system is booted to Windows NT 4.0
(Service Pack 3 or higher is recommended), you will also need to install several provided drivers
and utilities. These utilities are designed to detect the location of the hardware and report the base
address and IRQ assignments for your use. The TOOLS diskette contains these programs.
Place the TOOLS disk in a floppy drive (ex: A:), click the Start Menu, select the Run menu item,
and type A:INSTALL [enter]. This will run the installation program from the floppy disk to install
the software to your hard-disk.
Once the software installation is complete, use Explorer or My Computer to find the install direc-
tory, and enter the PCINT subdirectory. Double-click to run the PCINT.EXE program. This pro-
gram copies NTIOPCI.SYS to the [NT]\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS directory and dynamically loads
and runs the driver.
Note:
If you previously installed an older version of NTIOPCI.SYS, please delete the file from
your [NT]\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS directory prior to running PCINT.EXE.
PCINT displays the list of COM addresses and the IRQ assigned. While this list is on screen, open
the CONTROL PANEL (START|RUN|CONTROL, START|SETTINGS|CONTROL PANEL, or
MY COMPUTER|CONTROL PANEL) and execute the PORTS applet.
Click Add...; a dialog box titled “Advanced Settings for New Port” will appear. Select the COM
port number of an available COM port, type the Base I/O Port Address of COMA and the IRQ from
the PCINT screen. Click OK.
You have now installed one port in NT. Continue Clicking Add... and selecting addresses for the
remainder of the eight ports.
All these steps are performed manually, but could be automated, by making registry entries in
various registry keys. Consult your Microsoft provided documentation for more information.
The base addresses and IRQ of the PCI-COM-8S is provided in the registry under the NTIOPCI
key, in a structure of type PCI_COMMON_CONFIG. See the sample program PCICOM for a
demonstration of how to read this structure and extract the addresses in an application program.
