Port I/O

New for Liberty BASIC v4.5.0: New ntport.dll and zntport.sys files (version 2.8) are included for compatibility with 64-bit versions of Windows.

Note: Port I/O is not the same thing at serial port communications, but is usually used for programming the parallel port and other custom hardware devices. Please visit OPEN "COMn:..." for details on serial communications in Liberty BASIC.

Distributing your application using INP() and/or OUT to control hardware ports.

Because 32-bit versions of Windows do not have a built-in API for doing hardware I/O, you will need to distribute driver files with your Liberty BASIC application if it requires the use of INP() and OUT. You can find all runtime files and documentation you need to distribute in the ntport subdirectory of your Liberty BASIC  install.

They are:

ntport.dll (Application Dynamic Link Library)

zntport.sys (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista driver)

For Windows 95/98/ME

When you install your application to a Windows 95/98/ME system, you should install ntport.dll to your client's Windows\System directory. You need not distribute the zntport.sys.

For Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista

When you install your application to a Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista system, you have two choices:

1) If all the users have administrative rights (which is usually the case unless someone in your IT department has not given you administrative rights) you can install ntport.dll and zntport.sys to your client's Windows\System32 (or WinNT\System32) directory. In this case, you need not do any other configuration.

2) If some users don't have administrative rights, you need to create an installation program to install the NTPort Library driver. The installation program should do following steps:

- Install ntport.dll to Windows\System32 directory

- Install zntport.sys to Windows\System32\drivers directory

- Import the registry settings from ntport2.reg - this file is in the ntport directory

- Restart Windows

In this case, you still need administrative rights to run the installation program, but after the reboot, any normal user can use your program.