Making program look for usb instead of com

[Sic1978]

Hi i have an engine management system i am tuning and the main software/interaction between my windows xp 32 virtual machine is fine, works great.
However i need to make some alterations to the firmware (not that you'll care, but to assign the various output/input wires to sensors the car would not normally have had)
The problem i have is that this program is a bit.... Victorian.
It will only allow me to connect via serial ports. Now i gave no serial port on the laptop, my ecu doesn't use one (and uses usb a to usb b to communicate) what can i do? People say online use a serial port converter, but then what do i do? Attach another serial port to usb to that then usb a to usb b converter cable to put it back? Seems impractical.
Surely theres some script i can add/alter or some third party software to map one of my usb's to com1 or something?
Any help gratefully recieved!

 

[McVitas]

Communication protocol to interface with USB is totally different then the one for COM so I am sorry you will not fool your app to just use USB instead of COM. There is no chance it would work unless you get some patch for the app.

 

[Sic1978]

Thanks for the response, dammit that was what i have feared. I have access to the siusb.dll files from its main program (in theory built from the same platform but the main program is obviously newer) i already know swapping them doesnt work as it throws up errors.
How easy is it to get a patch or similar .dll file? its a developer produced file for xp. The whole program folder content is a mere 500kb.
Are there people out there that enjoy this sort of thing and would be willing to help?
Alternatively could a virtual com port emulator work? (Forgive me if that last question is really dumb as i know im not looking for the same sort of signal)