Parrallel Port Access - is it EPP or ECP or Bi-Directional . . on a Win 2000 system

Hi!

Get the parallel port address seems to be a hard work! :)
No valid informations can be found in internet...

I am playing now with WMI and its capabilities: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/wmi_reference.asp

I am newie managing Com, automation and this kind of things, but I made a code that's be able to enumerate the Parallel ports availlables and its starting addresses.

With the same mechanism, we can also know the port capabilities (normal, ecp, epp, etc)

The class of our interest is called:
Win32_ParallelPort  URL:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/win32_parallelport.asp

With this class, we can enumerate the ports and its data.
There is a problem... the property called 'Capabilities' of this class is an array:

Capabilities
    Data type: uint16 array

and... I dont know yet how read this type of data from a Delphi app...
I have an open question for this work:  
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Programming_Languages/Delphi/Q_21546083.html

but... without answer yet.

Well... here is the code:

- Add  ComObj, ActiveX to the uses line
- Put a TMemo (Memo1)
- Put a TButton and paste this code in its OnCLick event:


procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
type
  TParPort = record
    Name            : string;
    PnpDeviceId     : string;
    StartingAddress : string;
  end;

  TParPorts = array of TParPort;

  procedure EnumerateParallelPorts(var PortList: TParPorts);
  //uses ComObj, ActiveX
  var
    oCosas,
    oCosa        : OleVariant;

    services     : OleVariant;

    n            : integer;
    iTemp        : longword;
    sTemp        : string;
    oEnum        : IEnumvariant;

    function GetObject(Value: String): OleVariant;
    var  pUnk:       IUnknown;
         pDisp:      IDispatch;
         pmk:        IMoniker;
         pbc:        IBindCtx;
         cbEaten:    LongInt;
         clsid:      TGUID;
    begin

      // Resource protection
      try
         // Attempt to convert the string using the registry
         clsid:=ProgIDToClassID(Value);
         // Check running object table
         if (GetActiveObject(clsid, nil, pUnk) = S_OK) then
         begin
            // Return result as IDispatch
            result:=pUnk as IDispatch;
            // Release the refcount that we are holding on to
            pUnk:=nil;
         end
         else
            // Failed
            result:=Unassigned;
      except
         // Try to access the object using a moniker
         if (CreateBindCtx(0, pbc) = S_OK) then
         begin
            if (MkParseDisplayName(pbc, StringToOleStr(Value), cbEaten, pmk) = S_OK) then
            begin
               // Attempt to bind the moniker
               if (BindMoniker(pmk, 0, IDispatch, pDisp) = S_OK) then
                  // Return the IDispatch
                  result:=pDisp
               else
                  // Return unassigned
                  result:=Unassigned;
               // Release refcounts
               pDisp:=nil;
               pmk:=nil;
            end
            else
               // Return unassigned
               result:=Unassigned;
            // Release refcounts
            pbc:=nil;
         end
         else
            // Return unassigned
            result:=Unassigned;
      end;

    end;



  begin
    services:=GetObject('winmgmts:root\cimv2');
    oCosas:=Services.ExecQuery('Select * from  Win32_ParallelPort');

    oEnum := IUnknown(oCosas._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;

    //Get name & PNPDeviceId of the ports
    while oEnum.Next(1,oCosa,iTemp) = 0 do begin
      if High(PortList)<iTemp then SetLength(PortList,iTemp);
      with PortList[High(PortList)] do begin
        Name        :=oCosa.Caption;
        PnpDeviceId :=oCosa.PNPDeviceId;
      end;
      oCosa:=Unassigned;
    end;

    oCosas := Unassigned;


    //Enum PnPAllocatedResources looking for the parallel ports address

    oCosas:=Services.ExecQuery('Select * from  Win32_PnPAllocatedResource');
    oEnum := IUnknown(oCosas._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;

    while oEnum.Next(1,oCosa,iTemp) = 0 do begin
      //Asociate the resource to the found ports and get the address
      for n:=0 to High(PortList) do begin
        sTemp:=StringReplace(PortList[n].PnpDeviceId,'\','\\',[rfReplaceAll      ]);
        if Pos(sTemp,oCosa.Dependent)<>0 then begin
          sTemp:=oCosa.Antecedent;
          sTemp:=Copy(sTemp,Succ(Pos('"',sTemp)),MaxInt);
          sTemp:=Copy(sTemp,1,Pred(Length(sTemp)));
          PortList[n].StartingAddress:=IntToHex(StrToInt(sTemp),3);
        end;
      end;
      oCosa:=Unassigned;
    end;

    oCosas := Unassigned;
    Services:=Unassigned;
  end;

var
  Ports : TParPorts;
  n     : integer;

begin
  EnumerateParallelPorts(Ports);

  //Show the captured data in a Memo:
  Memo1.Lines.Clear;

  for n:=0 to High(Ports) do begin
    With Ports[n] do begin
      Memo1.Lines.Add( Format('Port Name: %s, Address: %s',[Name,StartingAddress]) );
    end;
  end;

end;