A COM Port on a Windows PC indicates the bit rate, or the Baud rate?
If you search around the internet, you can easily find websites, google images, as well as many (YouTube) videos that explain the various properties of COM/serial/RS232 ports. As far as i'm concerned in most of these they state that in the COM port dialogue box the baud rate can be seen (and not just in Windows OS), such as here, here and even on Sparkfun here. And this is clearly false, since it explicitly states the bit rate. Here's an image from my Windows 8.1 PC as well:
And we know that bit rate isn't the same as baud rate. Also numerous times i've heard people e.g. on youtube videos talking about messing around with the "baud-rate" on windows pc. Now i'm confused. What is going on here. It clearly states the bit rate, isn't that right? Am i missing something?
Despite being marked "bits per second", that dialog actually displays baud as a rate in symbols per second. (Symbols include data bits but also start, stop, and parity. For serial ports these are often also called "bits".)
Besides framing symbols, the other cause for a difference between bit rate and baud would be multilevel signalling -- however this doesn't apply to PC serial ports since they only use binary signalling, therefore one data symbol = one bit. Don't be confused by the fact that many serial-attached modems use a larger signal constellation, this refers to the link between the modem and computer, not between two modems.
The selections shown in the image in the question will result in 9600 baud, but only 960 bytes per second. (1 byte = 8 bits but due to start and stop intervals, the serial port sends 10 symbols per byte)