Windows shuts down fax upgrade

Archived Articles, Computer Upgrades

Question: I am hoping that you can help us with a problem we’re having with our Delrina WinFax program. We have a NEC P60 with 32 Megs and a U.S. Robotics Winmodem 28.8 running Win 95 with MS Explorer 3.0 and WinFax 7.5. When I first installed everything, it all worked together great. I then uploaded software from U.S. Robotics’ Website to increase the modem speed to 33. Since then, I have been unable to get my WinFax program to work, although everything else does. It will call out, connect, but it fails to send the fax. I have tried reloading the WinFax program, but it has not helped. Any ideas? – Johnny M.

Answer: Modems are finicky beasts at the best of times. Since U.S. Robotics introduced the software-upgradeable modems I’ve seen a few problems like you’ve described. Luckily there’s an easy fix.
The key to your problem is that you haven’t told Windows 95 that you’ve changed your modem.

“As far as Windows 95 is concerned, the modem is still a 28.8 U.S. Robotics Winmodem, and not 33.6,” explained Christopher Salvador, a network administrator at Vicom Multimedia in Edmonton. By downloading and installing the USR software upgrade, you’ve basically given the little communicator a technological makeover. To ensure that Windows 95 knows this has happened, Salvador suggests you take the following steps:

  1. Remove all the modem profiles.
  2. Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel.
  3. Double-click on Modems, and remove any references to installed modems in the dialogue box.
  4. Now, click on System to access the Device Manager tab.
  5. Go down to Modem, and remove any entries there.
  6. Reboot the computer. Windows 95 should auto-detect the “new” modem.
  7. Follow the prompts to install the drivers.
  8. When Windows 95 has finally finished booting, go into the Winfax Pro 7.5 setup menu, choose Modem and redesignate the active modem. This should fix the problem.

For those who have a U.S. Robotics modem and want to determine whether it’s upgradeable to a faster model, either via a flash upgrade or by replacing an on-board chip, check out www.usr.com.