incoming call notification

I set up a Gateway P4 XP Home machine for a friend last year, with a dialup connection to the internet. First contact with XP for me, and I liked a lot of the new features.

Whenever she was online wtih her dialup, if a phone call came in, she was alerted and given a choice of whether she wanted to take the incoming call. When she clicked on "answer," the internet connection was dropped and the phone rang through. I thought that was an XP feature.

I have recently set up XP pro on another machine, and I cannot seem to find that feature to enable it. Searched the help, the internet, and my favorite BBS here.

How do I enable this on XP Pro? or was this simply a "home" rather than "pro" feature? or perhaps a third-party feature from Gateway? my XP Pro friend wants to have the same convenience.

Anybody know what I'm talking about? TIA - maureen

 

The only thing I've heard about that is similar is the Emerson Switchboard, which can be found online from $35 to $60.

When you're online and get an incoming call, you can answer the phone and keep both connections for about 20 to 30 seconds, long enough to tell the caller that you'll call back. If you talk longer, the dialup connection is dropped.

Note: Call waiting is required.

 

There are two online services (that I know of) which will do what you want:

Internet Call Manager - http://www.internetcallmanager.com/

CallWave - http://www.callwave.com/landing/

 

call interrupt = a modem feature

Well, I called Gateway and they told me it was the v92 compatible modem that had this feature on the first machine "“ the call-waiting interrupt feature. So, Pete C, you were right on. I asked if the user interface on that program was an XP interface that became active once the hardware feature was activated, and he said no, it was more than likely the install software for the modem that provided the interface for the interrupt feature.

I checked out Jim’s and Miz’s suggestions, and there is no doubt that the Call Wave and Internet Call manager by far the most cost effective.

This leads me into the reason for the post in the first place -- but I may now be in the wrong forum: On the second machine, the XP without the interrupt feature, we set the dialup configuration so that there was no call-waiting protection from incoming calls "“ the XP-Pro user WANTS to be interrupted with incoming calls. But incoming calls either ring busy to the caller, or just keep ringing "“ the XP user has no idea that calls are coming in because there is no disconnect. I’ve gone back in to look at the configuration, and there is no *70 or any other call waiting protection enabled. Don’t know how to enable that modem to be disconnected when other calls come in. When I called the ISP tech support people, they told me it was a Microsoft problem.

If there is a way to configure XP to allow a disconnect, I’d prefer to do that. Perhaps there is some other setting I missed.

Otherwise, I’ll suggest one of the programs that Miz recommended. Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I’ll be watching for any more suggestions. Thank you. - maureen