General Modem FAQ 1. What is a voice modem? 2. What is a TAPI-compliant modem? 3. What is a Telephony Service Provider? 4. What is Unimodem V? 5. Which operating systems come with UnimodemV? 6. How can I tell if I need Unimodem V? 7. I'm having trouble getting my modem based telephony software to work on  Windows 95. What can I do? 1. What is a voice modem? A voice modem is a modem that is capable of playing and recording audio over a telephone line.  While almost all modems are data and fax capable, more and more also have voice capabilities.   Common brands include US Robotics, 3Com, ZOOM, ModemBlaster and others. 2. What is a TAPI-compliant modem? TAPI stands for Telephony Application Programming Interface and is a programming standard provided by Microsoft within  their Windows operating system.  It allows software developers to produce telephony software that will work with any modem, as long as that modem is TAPI-compliant.   Telephony functions are provided through Windows built-in telephony features.  For a voice modem to work with Windows TAPI, the modem must have voice drivers and sound devices.  The voice drivers are interfaced with Windows 95/98 through UniModem/V, Windows' universal modem voice drivers.  Sound devices (or Wave Devices) for the voice modem are usually provided by the manufacturer.  3. What is a Telephony Service Provider (TSP)?  A Telephony Service Provider (TSP also known as a TAPI Service Provider) is a driver that allows TAPI compatable software to work with TAPI compatable hardware.  A manufacturer of hardware such as a modem card may provide a TSP so that developers of software can make software work with the manufacturers' hardware.  The idea is that the TSP looks after all the hardware issues and provides a standard interface so software can be written without needing to know the hardware details.  While some modem manufacturers may provide a TSP most don't.  That's OK because Microsoft have a standard TSP that works with many modem cards called UnimodemV. 4. What is Unimodem V? UnimodemV is the Telephony Service Provider (TSP) that allows voice modems to work with Microsoft's Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI). Unfortunately, there is no UnimodemV TSP for NT 4. It is currently only available for Windows 95/98. 5. Which operating systems come with Unimodem V? Early versions of Windows 95 did not ship with these drivers. If necessary, you can download and install these drivers from from here. To install the drivers, first make a temporary folder on your hard drive. Second, copy the unimodv.exe from to your temporary folder. Execute the unimodv.exe file which will extract all the files needed to update your existing unimodem driver including a readme file. View the readme file which will guide you through the installation process. All editions of Windows 98 included Unimodem/V. Windows 98 users should not download and install the Unimodem/V drivers for Windows 95 mentioned above. If there is reason to believe your Unimodem/V drivers have been corrupted you should reinstall Windows 98. Windows 2000 includes Unimodem/5 (not the same as UniModem/V). UniModem/5 provides all the functionality of UniModem/V for Windows 2000. Therefore, Windows 2000 users should not download and install the Unimodem/V drivers. If there is reason to believe your Unimodem/5 drivers have been corrupted you should reinstall Windows 2000. 6. How can I tell if I need Unimodem V? Go to the "\windows\system" directory and examine the date on the unimodem.vxd file. If the date is earlier than 11/16/95 then you need to install the updated Unimodem/V drivers. 7. I'm having trouble getting my modem based telephony software to work on  Windows 95. What can I do? a. No drivers It could be that your version of Windows 95 does not include UniModem/V.   If necessary, you can download and install these drivers from here.  To install the drivers, first make a temporary folder on your hard drive. Second, copy the unimodv.exe from to your temporary folder. Execute the unimodv.exe file which will extract all the files needed to update your existing unimodem driver including a readme file. View the readme file which will guide you through the installation process. b. Windows 95 and Telephon.cp$ In earlier versions of Windows 95 you may need to enable the Telephony applet in the Control Panel.  You do this by renaming the TELEPHON.CP$ file in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM  folder to TELEPHONY.CPL and then you will see it when you open up the Control Panel.  Once you have UnimodemV installed and have renamed the TELEPHONY.CP$ file your TAPI software should work, providing of course that you modem is TAPI compliant.  You DON'T need to do this with Windows 98. c. Problems with Caller ID with Windows 95 If you are having trouble with Caller ID support, it could be that you don't have the latest version of UnimodemV installed. CallerID support is part of UnimodemV. However the first release of UnimodemV would truncate the CallerID information to 10 characters. You should download the latest version of UnimodemV from here. d.  One more idea... The problem could be that you need to reinstall your modem drivers after you have installed the modem based telephony software on your computer.  First uninstall your modem drivers then reinstall them.