Configuring Microsoft Fax to answer multiple rings - can it be done?

[Chairman_Pow]

One of the big reasons I took the trouble to switch over to XP Pro was that I figured I could just have the computer answer all of my faxes and not have to waste paper (and ink!) with the thousands of junk faxes that seem to come in each day. However, I was dismayed to find that the damn thing will pick up no matter what comes in on the line. You see, I have one of those “linebacker” deals wherein I have two separate phone numbers and they are differentiated by different ring patters.

My several-years-older-than-XP-Pro fax machine knows the difference between one ring and three. But XP doesn’t seem to. There’s got to be a way…doesn’t there?

Failing that, are there any other good services that I could use? I know of some free ones, but I have the sinking feeling that they spam the sending fax machines to make up for letting you get some free fax-to-emails.

[Q.E.D]

You are apparently referring to distinctive ring. Inexplicably, Microsoft chose not to provide support for it in XP. There is a considerable discussion about it here, along with some workarounds and other useful suggestions. One of the more highly-praised solutions was this one:

@Kyle R

My need was to have my computer answer only on a particular distinctive ring pattern, so it could receive faxes without interfering with my voice calls.

Here’s how I got around it for my “U.S. Robotics 56K Fax Win Int” (part number 3CP5699A, also known as a WinModem), on Windows 2000:

(1) Turn on distinctive ring recognition in the modem:

Under Control Panel / Phone and Modem Options / Modems / Properties / Advanced, set “Extra initialization commands” to “S41=1” (without the quotes, and you don’t need the “AT” prefix).

This command varies from modem to modem; to find the right one for you, check your registry (which is populated from your modem’s .inf file when it’s installed) or your modem’s technical documentation. Mine was in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class{<long-guid>}\0000\EnableDistinctiveRing

Instead of responding with “RING” any time the phone rings, this change makes my modem respond with “RING A” for my first phone number and “RING B” for my second number (and presumably C and D for third and fourth numbers).

(2) Tell the Unimodem driver to answer on “RING B”:

There is a “Responses” key in the registry that tells the Unimodem driver how to interpret responses from the modem. Mine was at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Unimodem\DeviceSpecific\U.S. Robotics 56K Fax Win Int::U.S. Robotics Corporation::U.S. Robotics Corporation\Responses

(For information about the meaning of the binary data for each Responses entry, see the following URL:)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/modem/hh/modem/modemref1_90vm.asp?frame=true

Mine already had entries for “RING A<cr><lf>” and B and C, but all three had a response state (the first byte in the binary data) that means a distinctive ring is coming in, and the Unimodem driver for Windows 2000 doesn’t understand that. To keep them from matching, delete or rename these entries. I renamed mine and just prepended an “x” so they wouldn’t match.

Mine also had an entry for “<cr><lf>RING<cr><lf>”, and it had a response state (08) that tells the Unimodem driver the phone is ringing. I simply renamed this entry to “<cr><lf>RING B<cr><lf>”.

After rebooting so the changes could take effect, my computer now ignores calls on the first number and correctly answers calls on the second number. This works because the Unimodem has no responses that match “RING A” and has one response for “RING B” whose response state tells Unimodem a call is coming in.

[Chairman_Pow]

Hmmm. I don’t have that modem, nor W2000, but some of the other stuff in that thread was helpful. Hopefully, I didn’t just set my modem to dial in Al-Qaida or anything.

Thanks for the information. I’ll let you know if it works.