Is there a way to "Inherit" a serialport class instance on a second form?

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VB

Hi guys, quick question, in dealing with IO.Ports.Serialport

I have this class,

''' <summary>
''' Routines for finding and accessing COM ports.
''' </summary>

Public Class ComPorts
'....this class contains different properties and subs that handle the serial port communication. for example:
   Friend Shared Sub FindComPorts()
'.....omitted
    End Sub
Friend Function OpenComPort() As Boolean
'...omitted
End Function

'and such..
(this came from a serial communication example from lvr.com)
I'm using this class on my first form , like such

 Public UserPort1 As ComPorts
'...
UserPort1.OpenComPort()

My question arises here: now that the port is open on the first form(UserPort1 is declared:Public UserPort1 As ComPorts on the first form), how do I keep the port open,when I close/hide the first form and give focus/show the second form??

---------------------------

UPDATE:
Thank you for the reply. I added a public module

Module PublicSerialPortModuel
    Public UserPort1 As ComPorts

End Module

and now I can use UserPort1 in form2 without the "form1.xxxx" prefix.

I run into another problem though, which got me really nonplussed(well..confused)
I used a even handler on form1 to handle DataReceived event

AddHandler UserPort1.SelectedPort.DataReceived, AddressOf DataReceivedHandler

and that sub is something like

  Private Sub DataReceivedHandler(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.IO.Ports.SerialDataReceivedEventArgs)
      COMportReadBuffer1 = UserPort1.SelectedPort.ReadExisting
      While UserPort1.SelectedPort.BytesToRead > 0
          COMportReadBuffer1 &= UserPort1.SelectedPort.ReadExisting
      End While
End Sub

which works all fine on the first form. But when I do the same thing on form2,

AddHandler UserPort1.SelectedPort.DataReceived, AddressOf DataReceivedHandler2

when DataReceived event is triggered and I get into DataReceivedHandler2(), the read buffer is blank and its length is 0

Can you think of any possible reasons for this? I can't ..with UserPort1 now being defined public in the public module