XP and Com ports

I tried to upgrade from 98 to Xp and everything seemed to go fine. No problem with compatability (according to Microsoft) but when I tried to install a modem there were no com ports. I uninstalled through device manager and when I tried to reinstallI got the com1 and 2 with explination marks and an error code of 43. When I searched Microsoft support couldn’t find this code. There was also a message stating “windows has stopped this device because it has reported a problem” I tried to find thismessage also on ms web site and had no luck. Can anyone help with this problem? I really would like to try using this os.