virtualbox.org

I just created a new machine for my wife's boss using windows 7 64bit. however I later found out that some of the software he needs to run is 32 bit only, so i created a VM with windows xp on it @32 bits. everything works great, however now I find out he needs a serial i/o port. I purchased a pci bus card for this purpose but the xp machine doesnt seem to see the ports. further, in the settings of the virtual machine for virtualbox, it doesnt give me the option to enable any of the serial ports. (the options are there but greyed out) does any one have experience with this? at first i thought that a pci serial was less likely to have improper behavior, but would i be better off trying the usb converter?

Thanks,

Jeremie.

to clarify:
-The "Serial Ports" settings section of my VM - NOT showing that the serial port is enabled (doesnt let me chose)
-The list of devices in "Ports" branch of your host device manager - showing that COM1 exists.

Answer found:

the machine has to be in the powered off state, if there is a saved state discard it and then once its properly powered off you will be able to select your com ports.