How many serial ports can be configured in Windows 7?

Question

I am trying to learn the maximum number of serial ports that can be configured on Windows 7. Any information on this will be greatly appreciated. I'm having trouble finding this.

Solution

Windows 6.0+ support 256 Communications Port devices.

Comments

[Zoredache]

How many do you really need?

[Admin]

We need to connect around 80 devices.

[Chris S]

What kind of devices? Perhaps RS485 would be a better alternative.

[Admin]

Unfortunately I am locked in to RS-232 due to hardware limitations. We are planning to proxy the serial port via Ethernet using third-party hardware. We are in the planning stages and I couldn't find the maximum number of ports I could configure.

[Admin]

Thank you for the information. That's more than we'll need. Where did you get this information? I will need a reference in my documentation.

[Chris S]

Honestly I don't know where or if MS has this documented. It's a definitely the current limit however.

[ndoll]

Windows has supported 256 ports since Windows 95, at least according to the API documentation.

[Chris S]

@JohnGardeniers I think that's only for 32-bit apps; IIRC 16-bit are limited to 9... Do you have a link to something official looking? I couldn't find anything.

[ndoll]

You may be right. I don't have any references to hand but recall that I looked up the information when I was writing a comms program for Win95, which was obviously a few years ago.

[RogUE]

Might be useful .

[DavidPostill]

Please quote the essential parts of the answer from the reference link(s), as the answer can become invalid if the linked page(s) change.