Thanks for response.
It may be that the problem is per:
"As Zenerdiode wrote, you should replace SerialDesktop.dll and SerialDevice.dll with Serial2.dll or SerialEx.dll. The older libraries are not compatible with .Net CF 2.0."
(If the "not compatible" could result in a crash.)
But my device is a F-S Loox 560 running WM5.0 and the serial I want is plain COM1. Which, as a device+cable works OK to ActiveSync, for example.
Anyway, I changed the above source code, on my device, to use Serial2.dll and altered some serial settings which were not what I wanted and I can now run it to do simple stuff. So now perhaps I can go back to the 3rd-party application (which is MobileVT) and see if I can get [X|Y|Z]modem protocol working to my Psion which purports to support them too...
Cheers, Mike.