FIX: New MSCOMM control available

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Visual Basic for Windows, versions 2.0 and 3.0
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Summary:

A new version of the MSCOMM control is available in the self extracting
ZIP file MSCOMM.EXE. This control fixes a problem where the OnComm event
will not fire when communicating with some 14.4 baud modems.

The file MSCOMM.EXE can be downloaded from the Microsoft Software Library
(MSL) accessable from the following services:

	- Microsoft Software Library (MSL) on CompuServe (GO MSL).

	- Microsoft Software Library on Internet (ftp.microsoft.com  cd softlib)

	- Microsoft Download Service (206)936-MSDL.


More Information:

The date, time, size, and version number of the MSCOMM.VBX file that
shipped with Visual Basic version 3.0 is:

   Date: 28-APR-1993
   Time: 12:00 a.m.
   Size: 34304
   Version: 2.0.9000.7

The date, time, size, and version number of the updated MSCOMM.VBX file
is as follows:

   Date: 12-MAY-1993
   Time: 12:21 p.m.
   Size: 34816
   Version: 2.1.0.1

When using the MSCOMM.VBX provided with Visual Basic version 2.0 or
3.0 to communicate with a 14.4 baud modem, the OnComm event may not
fire. The revised version of the MSCOMM.VBX control available on
CompuServe fixes this problem by introducing a new Notification
property. The problem relates to using Windows version 3.1 event driven
communications. The new property fixes the problem by allowing you to
use Windows version 3.0 polling techniques instead.

The Notification property is not available at design time, but you can
get and set its property value at run time. It's default value of zero
(0) tells the control to use Windows version 3.0 polling techniques. A
value of 1 tells the control to use Windows version 3.1 event driven
communications.

Microsoft recommends that you set the property value to 1 if you are
using the MSCOMM control to communicate with a modem whose baud rate
is lower than 14.4 baud.

One other change that was made. The default property setting for the
Interval property was changed from 1000 to 55.

To install the new control, copy the updated version into the
WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory on your computer. Also check to make sure
that no other copies of MSCOMM.VBX exist on your computer. If you find
an older version of the MSCOMM.VBX file, delete it or rename it.

NOTE:  Care must be taken when installing the updated MSCOMM.VBX that no 
existing Visual Basic applications that use the original MSCOMM.VBX are 
broken.  The updated MSCOMM.VBX (Version: 2.1.0.1) is not compatible with 
Visual Basic application (.EXE files) which were created with the original 
version of the MSCOMM.VBX (Version: 2.0.9000.7).  The .EXE files for these 
applications must be recreated with the 2.1.0.1 version of the MSCOMM.VBX 
in order to work correctly with this updated .VBX file. If the specific 
problem fixed by the updated .VBX (as discussed above) is not a concern 
and there are existing Visual Basic applications for which a customer does 
not have the source code that uses the original .VBX then the updated .VBX 
should NOT be used.
