Daniel,

MANY THANKS! The key was the 'first available port' information. I just changed the registry entries from COM5 to COM2 (had previously done COM3, and of course that left a gap between COM1 and COM3 and so PE didn't see COM3). Works great now. Brand of cable is Startech which I searched for on this forum and no one seems to have, so perhaps this will help someone in the future. Also, I changed the infrared port to COM3 (don't know if I had to, but I did it per your advice to disable).

Now the big question: Why the %&$* isn't there just an option to override the auto-detect in PE and you can select any COM port name you'd like? It's not like this is version 1 of the software and given the trouble this has caused people, it seems like SUCH an easy and helpful add.

Oh well. Mine works now. Yeah! Thanks again.