Classic Phonetools 9 is a Disaster

[anaron]

Used Classic Phonetools for years as my fax program. Loved it until Windows 7! March 2010, I wasted $30 for the Classic 9 version that works great on Xp. On Win 7, I click the icon, the splash screen loads, the program skin loads behind it then disappears. Two months, I have been trying to get version 9 to load and Avanquest support has been absolutely no help or do they even care. I can go back to the old 4 series versions and they will work. Makes no sense. Anyone got any suggestions? Really hate to transition to a new program.

 

[Packet]

can you run it in a vm?

 

[anaron]

Thought about that but know little about it so I contacted a tech I knew. He played with it but said it was erratic. At times the fax line would ring and the modem would answer but the fax program would not activate then other times it worked great. Based on that I dropped that idea.

 

[Packet]

i take it you/he tried compatibility mode for XP and that didnt work.
but did you/he try installing it inside a virtual machine?

makes it more convoluted, no denying that - but if it'll work...

 

[anaron]

Yes Packet, tried that. Still would not load. Yes, he did install it in a virual machine but kept getting erratic results, run sometimes sometimes would not and receiving faxes immediately is very critical for my situation.

 

[robbiestewart]

Check your modem drivers

Hi Anaron,

I had the same problem that you were having. Mine kept disapperaing also.
If you're trying to run Classic Phone Tools 9 for the first time and you haven't configured the software to work with your modem, what you will need to do first is right-click on the Classic Phone Tools icon, either on your desktop or programs menu, and select "run as administrator" to run the program in administrative mode first. Classic Phone Tools will then detect what modem you have installed in your box, if you have one installed and you have the correct driver installed in the device manager. You should only have to run Classic Phone Tools in administrative mode once so that the software can detect and configure your modem correctly. You must have adminstrative rights configured for your Windows 7 user account (the user accounts icon in the control panel), otherwish you will have to get the person who owns the computer to run this procedure for you. After you run this procedure, you should have no further problems with Classic Phone Tools 9.

Also to those of you who paid $29 for this software, if your modem happens to be either a US Robotics or has a Conexant chipset on the board, you don't need to pay $29 for the software. You can download it for free at:

USRobotics Support BVRP PhoneTools

The software will detect your modem by running the above procedure, even if it isn't a US Robotics modem, just select one that closely matches your interface, PCI, USB, ISA etc. Mine is a Zoom V.92 USB modem and I selected US Robotic V. 92 USB and it works perfectly.

 

[anaron]

Thanks Robbie for the response. Gave up on Classic and went to EssentialFax and absolutely love it! Blows Classic completely out of the park. I get a chance in the next few days, I am going to try your suggestion just out of curiousity. I am the only user on this computer and also the administrator but you might be on to something.

 

[robbiestewart]

I may try EssentialFax myself if I can find a free version of the program, like I did for Classic Phone Tools. Unfortunately, due to my unemployed status (no paycheck coming in) I cannot afford the $29 bucks for it. Thank god for Wi-Fi, because I wouldn't be online either without it. Reguarding user accounts, I'm sure I'm on to something because I attended a Microsoft launch party here in Knoxville, Tennessee back in 2007 when they first releashed Vista and Office 2007, which I got a free copy of for attending the event, and Bill Gates went into detail about the user accounts security and stricker control updates that they had made starting with Vista and now in Seven and one of things that he stressed on was anytime that a piece of software installed on your computer needs access to a piece of hardware installed in your box so that it can configure itself to use it (ie modem, ethernet card, display card, etc), you must first run the software in administrative mode to set up your hardware with your software. So that's why I suggested this after reading your above posting. Even though you may be the only user with administrative rights on your computer, both Vista and Seven also sets up a seperate administrator account which is normally hidden by default and is accessed only when running in safe mode. Microsoft added this safety feature in case you happen to forget your login password. To boot in safe mode, you press "F8" before you see the windows screen. Then you should see the administrator account option in addition to your own user name listed.

 

[anaron]

Robbie, that did not work either. Did install it on my wife's xp computer and it worked fine. Just don't seem to like my Win7 Pro!

 

[robbiestewart]

Well, it works fine on my Windows 7 Home Starter that came with my Dell computer after I ran the procedure that I described in my prior posting. The only other thing that could be causeing phone tools to crash if you tried to run it in administrative mode would probably be an incompatiablitly with your modem or the drivers that your modem is currently using. There maybe either a driver or firmware update for your modem avilable at either the modem manufacture's website, the windows update site, or you might try using a generic modem driver depending on what chipset that your modem card has on it from the chipset maker's site. The most common modem chip manufactures are Conexant, Lucent, and Intel, but yours maybe different. If you can get access to your modem card, see what kind of chipset it has. The chips will be a square shape, black in color with white lettering stamped on them. I had to do this with my Zoom V. 92 USB modem model 3090, which Zoom doesn't have a Windows 7 driver for, so since it's an external USB modem, I took it a part to see what kind of chipset that it had, which was Conexant and then I went to Conexant's web site and downloaded a the generic HCF driver for USB and it works fine in Windows 7 and phone tools.

If you can, send me some screen shots from the device manager in the control panel, with your modem highlighted and the current driver thats listed on the driver tab under the modem's properties and I'll check on this and see what I can come up with. Also, send me the manufacture name and model number of your computer, unless you have custom built one. [email protected] is my e-mail address.

 

[RobK88]

Just want to confirm that Robbiestewart's approach worked for me. I am running Windows 7 SP 1 64 bit and a US Robotics 5637 USB FAX/Voice modem.

And please note that since Robbiestewart's last post, a NEW version of BVRP PhoneTools has been released which probably fixes many bugs. The latest version of PhoneTools from the US Robotics website is version 9.07a.

Here are the steps I followed:

Step 1 -- Install that latest Driver for the Modem from the Modem's manufacturer website.

Step 2 -- Update your modem with the the latest firmware from the Modem's manufacturer website.

Step 3 -- Install BVRP PhoneTools

0. Log into a Windows User Account with Administrator privileges. (Often just called an Administrator Account).

1. Download and run the latest PhoneTools installer. (The latest version as of this post was version 9.07a from US Robotics website).

2. When UAC pops up and asks for your Administrator Password, enter it.

3. Follow the install wizard
PLEASE NOTE: During installation, make sure to UNSELECET "Run PhoneTools after installation".

4. FIRST RUN OF PHONETOOLS AFTER INSTALLATION: After Installation, right click on the PhoneTools icon (either on the Desktop or in the START Menu) and click on Run as Administrator. Enter the Administrator password.

5. PhoneTools will run and will automatically find your modem and configure PhoneTools appropriately.
PLEASE NOTE: After Installation, you only need to run Phone Tools once in Administrator mode to setup PhoneTools with your particular modem.

6. Quit PhoneTools

7. Next Run PhoneTools normally (NO need to run as an administrator). NOW YOU CAN START FAXING!!

PhoneTools can now be run in any USER account -- (either an Administrator User Account or a Regular User Account).

Rob