Software Review: Iguidance 2009 (lack of) support

**shotgunefx** · 09-13-2008, 07:00 AM

Originally Posted by Marvin Hlavac

Jim, I understand your frustration, and most (if not all) of us would feel exactly the same way you did. But realistically, we cannot expect them to know all the answers, and to support Microsoft Windows issues.

They suggested a different GPS receiver would likely correct the problem, but you were not willing to buy a new USB GPS unit, so they offered you a refund. I thought it was quite reasonable, even though I understand you expected they would do more troubleshooting. They would likely put out more effort into it, if the issue was reported by more than one of their customers.

I'm glad you found a solution, and thanks for sharing it here. It may help the next guy.

I was on the fence until I read it twice. That's pretty lazy of them. If you don't want to support serial GPS devices (which are not uncommon at all), then throw USB GPS on the requirements.

From there first response, it appears they knew were to look and simply didn't bother to offer anything beyond that. It wouldn't be hard to say "Send us a list of your comms and what's associated on them". "Or look at your comports, see any "weird" devices?".

I spent some years in tech support, from low tech to running a bunch of projects (and notoriously running Ibid aka Microtouch support, ALL serial port issues). I can understand you have to have a cut off someplace, but another sentence or two would have been nothing and gone a good way towards solving it.

And personally, I use comm ports all the time, my new PC? First thing I did was get a port header to attach to the motherboard. Homebrew is much easier with RS-232.

**2k1Toaster** · 09-13-2008, 12:42 PM

Here you go so it doesnt happen in the future:

Add this to your boot.ini file, and no more serial mice.

/NOSERIALMICE=[COMx | COMx,y,z...]
Obsolete Windows NT 4 qualifier-replaced by the absence of the /FASTDETECT switch. Disables serial mouse detection of the specified COM ports. This switch was used if you had a device other than a mouse attached to a serial port during the startup sequence. Using /NOSERIALMICE without specifying a COM port disables serial mouse detection on all COM ports. See Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q131976 for more information.

**kibble** · 09-15-2008, 11:21 AM

The stupid serial ballpoint issue drove me nuts when it first happened, especially because I already had the computer in the car. with no way to disable the GPS which was connected THROUGH a USB adapter. Some

ing and lots of

ing revealed lots of information that all pointed to the OS (windows) installing a serial ballpoint driver when it detected any sort of activity on a serial port. Used some patches and switches until I was able to get it working properly. Haven't had any issues since!

**HiJackZX1** · 09-15-2008, 11:42 AM

Originally Posted by 2k1Toaster

Here you go so it doesnt happen in the future:

Add this to your boot.ini file, and no more serial mice.

/NOSERIALMICE=[COMx | COMx,y,z...]
Obsolete Windows NT 4 qualifier-replaced by the absence of the /FASTDETECT switch. Disables serial mouse detection of the specified COM ports. This switch was used if you had a device other than a mouse attached to a serial port during the startup sequence. Using /NOSERIALMICE without specifying a COM port disables serial mouse detection on all COM ports. See Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q131976 for more information.

This is the issue I am having, but sometimes the serial mouse isnt there, but then I restart and all of a sudden its there again. Can the boot.ini be edited while Windows is running, or can i just go and edit? Also what if i wanted to do this on ports 1, 2, and 3? The 4th has the amp ctrl and it never acts up. The other though are having a identity crissis.

PS: so in the boot.ini, I am putting /NOSERIALMICE=[COM1,2,3], do i need the bracket things?

**kibble** · 09-15-2008, 11:55 AM

If it's still showing up, when your mouse starts jumping around on the screen, disconnect the GPS, go to your hardware properties and disable, don't remove, the "serial ballpoint". It *should* work.

**BlackStealth** · 10-13-2008, 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by clifwlkr

In my initial playing around, oddly enough the routing was better in the v3 than the new one. Just driving to work, it came up with a few really crazy routes. v3 was almost dead on with the quickest route, while 2009 sends me down side streets rather than the interstate that parallels them.

2009 routing now includes traffic history, so if the interstate is known to be congested during that time of day it'll choose side streets. This is a good thing, of course if you don't want it you can disable traffic history and get v3 kind of routing.

**clifwlkr** · 10-14-2008, 11:02 AM

I wonder how that feature is populated?

I have driven that route at that time of day for 2 years, and it is only congested if there is some major accident. Even with an accident, the route the program would have me travel would still likely take longer with all of the stop lights and such. So if it is this feature, it seems to not be getting valid traffic information.

Jim