I’ve been playing around with replacing my landline with either Magic Jack or Skype. It’s silly to pay the $35/month for a phone we really never use. Both my wife and I have cell phones. The only reason we have a land-line is so the sitter has a line when taking care of our kids.
This led me to the Zoom 5900. It’s a pretty cool little device – it plugs into your pc through a usb cable and allows you to use a normal phone on Skype. This also means it only works when the computer it is hooked up to is on. Since I have a Windows Home Server (also known as WHS, which besides the XBox 360 is Microsoft’s best product of the decade) there’s no problem for me there. The issue is WHS is a modified version of Server 2003, and there aren’t a ton of drivers made for it.
So, in case anyone else out there is looking to try to install the Zoom 5900 on a Windows Home Server, here are the steps I followed to get it to work. It’s not hard, but it just took some digging around the internet to find all the parts.
- Download the old version of Skype and install it on your WHS. The new version doesn’t support some of the features through the Zoom 5900, so just trust me and get it. You’ll want to turn off the nag screen for updates and automatically download updates as well.
- Next head over to Zoom and download the newest drivers for the Zoom 5900. Make sure Skype is running.
- Now, here’s wehere you need to head away from the directions included with the driver. I ran into a problem where the WHS wouldn’t recognize the sound driver Zoom installed. It turns out after reading this post on the Magic Jack and WHS that my problem was how I was logged into Remote Desktop Connection while doing these installs.
This solved the problem.
Start–> Run–> %SystemRoot%\System32\mstsc.exe /console
Click options –> Local Resources, and choose Leave at remote computer under Remote computer sound. Add your password and log in.
Once you logon to Remote Desktop Connection, you can set up the Zoom 5900 in Skype by following the instructions with the driver. Essentially it entails making sure Skype selects the Zoom Adapter driver as the sound source. After that, you are good to go – stored speed dial and all.
I have to say, so far it works great. I’ve only been running it for a day, but if it works this well for the next week or two it’ll be time to run the “family phone” on it for a while – and then eventually dump the main land-line.
3 Comments
Hi,
I googled USB Skype adapter for WHS and your article was on the top of the page. I am planning to purchase Zoom 5900 based on your blog. I already have a DPH-50U so I don’t really have to switch to another USB adapter unless it really works smoothly with WHS w/o any issue. Since your post, have you noticed any compatibility issues after that? TIA!
Hi Lance.
It works great. There’s no problem with it at all once it’s up an running. Two things to be aware of if you make the switch:
1) In the US – you will need to dial ##0011-area code-7 digit number-* to dial to a landline using skype. It’s not as big of a pain as you’d think, but there’s no real documentation on it.
2) You need to remote login to the WHS after a reboot. I know there must be a way using the srvany/instsrv tools to make skype & the zoom monitors into services that run before someone logs on, but I failed at it the first few tries. I’m also not sure how you get the Zoom recognized before a login because it uses a USB port and that doesn’t seem to get recognized until a user logs on. I’m sure someone smarter than me has/can figure it out.
Hope that helps.
Bryan
Anyway, the simple solution is the remote desktop in, let Skype/zoom startup, and then logoff.
Thanks Bryan! Your reply is very detailed and helpful. Not able to run it as a service may not be a big deal to me since my WHS is supposed to be run 24×7. The problem might be at the time when windows update and auto-reboot. But I think I can live with it.
Thanks again.
Lance