Windows programming/modem problem

Hi all, Not game related but a problem I have come across with internal modems and Windows (tried on 95, 98, ME and 2000). I have a program that dials up a remote modem and performs some security validation for the user. The program then needs to exit and allow any other program to access to remote modem - i.e. it needs to free up the com port so e.g. the old terminal.exe program can access it without dropping the line This works fine for external modems but internal ones are causing me a large amount of grief. For some reason Windows seems to decide that once my program closes the COM port the modem is finished with and drops the connection (usually takes about 10 seconds to do this) - external modems - no problem leaves them alone. I am assuming (hoping)that this is some sort of internal setting in Windows but as yet no luck in finding it. Any ideas? Thanks for any replies Mike