This has probably come up a thousand times already, but months of searching have turned up nothing. I'm about to install a new Arduino, and I will get yet another comm port number. I used to be able to adjust the registry to stop this with FTDI chips, but I don't know if this is the same for Arduino. Somehow a manufacturer has to be able to do this, otherwise the PC will have 10,000 com ports on it in no time during testing.
I'm up to com7 now. I'm surprised I can't find any info on this problem, and it is a problem.
Thank you. I will try option #2