Hi Friends,
My collegue had been to a smartcard exhibition in NewDelhi, India a few months ago. Many people related to smartcard had attended this show. Some were from Taiwan, China, Korea, etc. One small incident happened.
On one of the stalls a smartcard reader was not working on Windows XP, whereas he was claiming that it should not give a problem because he had tested the reader on his office PC having windows XP. One of the visitor happened to be German, and he pointed that Microsft XP (I don't remember which version of XP) has STOPPED SUPPORTING NON-PLUG'N'PLAY peripherals. So the serial port of his Laptop was not working with the smartcard reader. Later he installed the Windows XP pro and it started working ok on the same laptop.
I did a little searching on microsoft website and came to the following link:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.a...-us;295745

On this page Microsoft is explaining about Non-Plug'n'Play problems about network cards and modems, but refer to the open statement saying:

Non-Plug and Play (PnP) devices are no longer supported in Windows XP. This may include modems and Network Interface Cards (NIC).


Non Plug-n-play devices maybe working now but be prepared for the future because "Billu" (Mr. Bill Gates) may come up tommorow and tell you that he will stop supporting ALL the Non plug-n-play devices.

The above link may be true for Serial ports and all the other Non Plug'N'Play peripherals inside our current PCs. So prepare yourself for the future.

"Wellcome to the future computers and OS designed by (or forced designed) by Bill Gates".

Bye,
with best regards from,
Mr. Kiran V. Sutar.