Probably these serial devices *really* look to XP as serial mice...
how can you know?
One possible solution can be disabling serenum (it is the component that
detects PnP devices attached to COM ports).

--PA

"Jetro" wrote:
Actually, XP wasn't mentioned for the following reason
(www.sysinternals.com):

/NOSERIALMICE is an 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.

/FASTDETECT is default boot option for Windows. Replaces NT4 switch
/NOSERIALMICE. The reason the qualifier exists (vs. just having NTDETECT
perform this operation by default) is so that NTDETECT can support booting
NT4. Windows Plug and Play device drivers perform detection of parallel and
serial devices, but NT4 expects NTDETECT to perform the detection. Thus,
specifying /FASTDETECT causes NTDETECT to skip parallel and serial device
enumeration (actions that are not required when booting Windows), whereas
omitting the switch causes NTDETECT to perform this enumeration (which is
required for booting NT4).

Go figure when and which qualifier Windows needs...

P.S. What level of intelligency is needed to swipe a credit card? Mostly
this is a teller rather than a customer who does it )