Hello,

I have a Windows Service running that manage all communication to and from a
serial COM interface. The service updates a SQL Server database whenever
something happens on the COM port.

To be able to send commands to the service, I added .NET Remoting. The
connection works fine and all that, but my trouble is how to pick up the
serial COM object that was initialized when the service started. When the
"SendCommand" function is called, a new instance of the SerialPort object is
being made and all settings are lost. Please see the code below.

Thanks for any kind of help.

Regards,
Jonah Olsson

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Public Class ComService
   Inherits System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase

   Private WithEvents SerialPort As New SerialPort

   Protected Overrides Sub OnStart(ByVal args() As String)

       ' Initiate the COM interface
       ConnectToInterface()
'......
   End Sub

   Private Sub ConnectToInterface()

       ' Load the SerialPort with settings
       With SerialPort
           Try
               .CommPort =
Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings("COMM_PORT")
           Catch ex As Exception
               m_eventLog.WriteEntry("Unable to assign serial port")
           End Try

           .BitRate =
Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings("BIT_RATE")
           .RTSEnable = True
           .DTREnable = True
           .EnableOnComm = True

           Try
               ' Open the serial port for communication
               .PortOpen = True
           Catch ex As Exception
               m_eventLog.WriteEntry(ex.Message)
           End Try

           If .PortOpen = False Then
               m_eventLog.WriteEntry("Unable to open serial port")
           End If
       End With
   End Sub

   ' Send commands to the COM interface
   Public Sub SendCommand(ByVal cmd As String)
       If SerialPort.PortOpen Then
           SerialPort.Output(cmd & Environment.NewLine)
       End If
   End Sub

End Class

Public Class RemoteConnector
   Inherits MarshalByRefObject
   Implements ICom

   Public Sub SendCommand(ByVal cmd As String) Implements ICom.SendCommand
       Dim cs As new ComService
       cs.SendCommand(cmd)
   End Sub
End Class