Okay, I am now connecting without the semaphore timeout problem.
If anyone reading ever encounters the same thing, I hope that this procedure works for you; but no promises; hey, it’s windows.
In my case this was Windows 7
I got a little hint from This page on eHow; not sure if that might help anyone or not.
So anyway, this was the simple twenty three step procedure that worked for me
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Click on start button
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Choose Control Panel
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From Control Panel, choose Device Manger
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From Device Manager, choose Universal Serial Bus Controllers
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From Universal Serial Bus Controllers, click the little sideways triangle
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I cannot predict what you’ll see on your computer, but on mine I get a long drop-down list
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Begin the investigation to figure out which one of these members of this list is the culprit…
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On each member of the drop-down list, right-click on the name
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A list will open, choose Properties
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Guesswork time: using the various tabs near the top of the resulting window which opens, make a guess if this is the USB adapter driver which is choking your stuff with semaphore timeouts
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Once you have made the proper guess, then close the USB Root Hub Properties window (but leave the Device Manager window open).
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Physically disonnect anything and everything from that USB hub.
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Unplug it.
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Return your mouse pointer to that USB Root Hub in the list which you identified earlier.
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Right click again
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Choose Uninstall
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Let Windows do its thing
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Wait a little while
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Power Down the whole computer if you have the time; some say this is required. I think I got away without it.
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Plug the USB hub back into a USB connector on the PC
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If the list in the device manager blinks and does a few flash-bulbs, it’s okay.
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Plug the BlueTooth connector back into the USB hub
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Let windows do its thing some more
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Within two minutes, I had a working COM port again, no semaphore timeouts.
Hope it works for anyone else who may be having a similar problem.