http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11811
--- Comment #26 from RBEmerson n5470@pinefields.com 2008-03-10 14:09:22 --- The following is from the application's company: "Coastal Explorer enumerates the 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\SERIALCOMM' registry key to get a list of COM port. Given that it only accesses that key with a read-only request, it should be impossible for the key to be accidentally deleted!
"Coastal Explorer also uses the hardware setup API in order to find the 'friendly name' of each port. This is not depended upon, however, since not all COM port drivers implement it correctly. If you see a COM port listed anywhere in Coastal Explorer and the name is plain and un-friendly like 'COM3' then it's because the driver for that port isn't 'complete'. When something shows up like 'Keyspan USA-19HS (COM5)' then it's because COM5 was found in the above mentioned registry and the 'Keyspan USA-19HS' was found using the device setup API."
The Keyspan USA-19HS is a serial/USB converter, with built-in kernel support in many distros including openSUSE (not Debian or Ubuntu).
If the SERIALCOMM key is being tossed out, the obvious questions are what does this, when, and why.
At the moment, inspecting HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP shows only one entry: Scsi (Scsi Port 0 and Scsi Port 1 - both identified as using the "WINE SCSI" driver). This despite the fact the USA-19HS is connected and powered up.