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Cellular Essentials - Infrared ports

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Cellular Essentials and the infrared port

To connect Cellular Essentials to the phone by infrared means to communicate with it in a twinkling of an eye. To use the cable means shutting down the computer, connecting the cable and rebooting, as cables in general should not be connected while the PC is in use. Cellular Essentials works with both, IrDA ports, with Windows 98 and all follow-up versions and with the Generic Ir Serial Port of Windows 95.

Various infrared ports for handsets

IrDa compatible infrared ports

All the newer models of Nokia® handsets with infrared interfaces are able to communicate with standard IrDA ports (the 51xx, 32xx and 33xx series do not have an IrDA port). The Windows-specific infrared monitor must correctly identify the activated cellular phone (first select menu-9 on your mobile phone in order to activate the integrated infrared interface), it is not necessary to activate the option "Install software for Plug and Play devices within range" in the infrared monitor (only if you would like to connect your mobile phone e.g. to the internet, as well), because Cellular Essentials does not need any driver to communicate with the cellular phone. Please check if you have activated the option "Infrared via IrDA" of Cellular Essentials.

Older Windows 95 versions do not have an IrDA interface, i.e. you have to update your program at the Microsoft web-page.

Generic infrared serial port

The 61xx series (excluding most US models) do have an infrared port, but cannot communicate via IrDA (although these models are detected correctly by the IrDA-infrared monitor). In these models Cellular Essentials can only communicate with the handset via Generic Ir Serial Port, in older Windows 95 versions this port was the only option to communicate via infrared. All follow-up operating systems supporting infrared have IrDA installed by default. In this case you have to remove the respective driver and install a Generic Ir Serial Port. In order to communicate with mobile phones of the 61xx series via infrared, select "Options->Infrared (61xx)" of Cellular Essentials.

Removing of the IrDA port with Windows 98 (only necessary for handsets of the 61xx series)

In Win95, infrared ports are installed as Generic Ir Serial Ports. In order to make it work with Win98 the infrared network adapter has to be removed and the msports.inf file has to be modified in such a way that a Generic Ir Serial Port can be added to the system. Although this is quite easy to do, please bear in mind that it does involve changing the Windows registry and that errors in your system could occur.

*** Make back-ups before you start ***

Installing the Generic Ir Serial Port for Cellular Essentials with Windows 98

In the following you will find a description of how to set up your PC to communicate with handsets of the 61xx series via infrared with Cellular Essentials on Win98:

Open the infrared monitor, go to "Options" and disable "Enabled infrared communication".
In System Properties (Win + Pause keys), Device Manager - Network adapters select "IrDA v3.0 Fast Infrared Port", click properties and check the box "Disable in this hardware profile". It will now appear with a red cross on it.

Windows asks you to restart your computer, click NO.
3. In C:\Windows\inf there is a file called msports.inf. Note that this is a system folder, if you have Windows set to hide all system and hidden files you will not be able to locate the file. You can see all files by selecting View/Folder Options from the menu in Windows Explorer and by selecting the option "Show all files." Make a backup just in case. Click the file and it will open in Notepad. Now find the two sections shown below, [Std] and [Strings] and make the following changes by removing the semi-colon (marked in red) at the beginning of the PNP0510 lines.

; Drivers
;----------------------------------------------------------
[Manufacturer]
%Std%=Std
%HP%=HP
%IBM%=IBM
%Socket%=Socket
%DBC%=DBC
%Smart%=Smart

[Std]
%*PNP0400.DeviceDesc% = LptPCity, *PNP0400 ; Printer PCity
%*PNP0401.DeviceDesc% = EcpPCity, *PNP0401 ; ECP Printer PCity
%*PNP0500.DeviceDesc% = ComPCity, *PNP0500 ; Communications PCity
%*PNP0501.DeviceDesc% = ComPCity, *PNP0501 ; Communications PCity

; No; *PNP051x devices are now supported in IRMINI.INF
; %*PNP0510.DeviceDesc% = InfraredComPCity, *PNP0510 ; IR Communications PCity used byr IrDA stack
; %*PNP0511.DeviceDesc% = InfraredComPCity, *PNP0511 ; IR Communications PCity used byr IrDA stack

; User readable strings
;----------------------------------------------------------
[Strings]
MS = "Microsoft"
Std = "(Standard pCity types)"
PCitysClassName = "PCitys (COM & LPT)"
*PNP0400.DeviceDesc = "Printer PCity"
*PNP0401.DeviceDesc = "ECP Printer PCity"
*PNP0500.DeviceDesc = "Communications PCity"
*PNP0501.DeviceDesc = "Communications PCity"
; *PNP0510.DeviceDesc = "Generic Ir Serial PCity"
;*PNP0511.DeviceDesc = "Generic Ir Serial PCity"
Now reboot and enter the BIOS set-up, make sure that the infrared port is enabled. Check also how the infrared port is defined. If the BIOS shows a FIR/SIR option for the infrared errors may occur in detecting a Generic Ir Serial Port with Windows 98. Make sure that you always have selected the option SIR.
Continue booting with Win98. Windows should detect and automatically install a Generic Ir Port . If this is not the case, go to Control Panel - Add New Hardware. Click Next, twice. Select "No, the device is not in the list", then click Next. Select, "No I want to select the hardware from a list" and click Next. Select Ports [COM & LPT], click Next. Under Standard port types select Generic Ir Serial Port. Click Next twice, then Finish. Windows asks you to shutdown and install, or change the settings on your hardware, ignore this and just reboot.
Usually the infrared port is installed on COM2. You may have to remove a modem from this port before installing the Generic Ir Port, and then reinstall the modem to e.g. COM3.
Run Cellular Essentials and set the infrared port in "Settings" to the physical Ir COM. Check in Device Manager to see which COM has been assigned to the Generic Ir Port. An example::

In this case you have to select COM2 as Ir Port in Cellular Essentials.

Toshiba Laptops

Please note that some Toshiba laptops have a PCI based IrDA port and the above described will not work with Win98. The following list indicates the affected models, but the list may be incomplete:

Libretto 100CT, Satellite 3xx series, 2505, 4000 series, Satellite Pro 490/490X, Portege 320, 7000/7010 series, Tecra 550, 750, 780, 8000 series. The problem is hardware related and cannot be fixed by a software patch. The best advice we can give if you have one of the machines listed above is to buy a cable.

If you have difficulties check in the BIOS to see how the infrared port is defined. If the BIOS shows a FIR/SIR option for infrared, errors may occur in detecting a Generic Ir Serial Port with Windows 98. Make sure that you always have selected the option SIR.

Sony Laptops

In addition to the steps outlined above an extra step is required in Sony laptops. You have to delete or rename the file smcirda.inf so that Windows 98 will not to find the SMC infrared controller. This smcirda.inf file you will find in the Windows\inf folder; note that this is a hidden folder and you must have your settings set to show all files in order to see this file. We have not been able to verify this information as we do not have access to a Sony laptop, so we would be interested in hearing if this additional step works for you, and in which models it did or did not work.

Tekram IRmate 210B

If you do not have an infrared port on your PC or laptop you can install the serial infrared device IR210 device from Tekram Technology Co., Ltd. You can find the appropriate driver for the Nokia 6100 cellular phones on the Tekram web-site which enables Cellular Essentials to work with this device, too.

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