IP Communicator startup problem in VMware

[akkey.kogepan]

Hi there,

Does anyone know how to get IP communicator 8.6 on Windows 7 Pro 64bit in virtual machine (ESXi 5.0) to start without a message "There are no compatible sound devices installed on this computer"?

I was using the softphone on Windows XP Pro in VM (ESXi 4.1) with "Virtual Audio Cable" freeware as a virtual sound card and worked fine all the time. I set up the above new environment in the same manner but it has a problem of staring up audio tuning wizard.

I also tried "Virtual Audio Streaming" instead of VAC but failed. The virtual sound cards are recognized correctly by the operating system, of course.

Is there any idea where to check? Any success report in running IP Communicator 8.6 on Win7 64bit (ESXi 5.0 VM) is grateful. (Please come up with how)

Thank you in advance,

Akihiro

[anchoudh]

Hi,

Note

Cisco IP Communicator is not supported in VMWare, Citrix, Terminal Services, Remote Desktop or other thin client environments.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cipc/8_5/english/release_notes/CIPC8x_RN.html

Hope it helps.

Anand

Pls rate helpful posts !!

[akkey.kogepan]

Anand,

Thank you for your post.

I understand it does not support virtual environment officially.

But this is lab use and it has been actually working on Windows XP as the IP phones for UCC Express/Enterprise agents.

It does not have to work in full feature, I want it to just on/off-hook and transfer as the agent phone in lab.

All I need is call signaling and no need for media streaming.

Regards,

Akihiro

[anchoudh]

Hi,

I am not aware any workarounds for making it to work. I will let others to comment on it.

By the way when you say that you are using UCCX\UCCE and if the phones are in the lab, why dont you use the CAD to perform the on/off-hook and transfer functionalities.

Just my thoughts.

Anand

Pls rate helpful posts by clicking on the stars below the right answer !!

[mniqbal11]

I have Windows7 VM running on ESXi 5.1. I enabled Virtual Audio Cable with following options and I was able to run CIPC using RDP.

Under Connected Source Lines - Enable Mic & S/PDIF
Enable Volume Control
Enable spk pin
Enable User PortCls
Enable Stream Buffer
and at the end press "Set" to save changed.

Note: RDP client should be configured to Play Audio on Remote Computer.
On the RDP Client Press Show Options and then press Local Resources Tab. Press Settings button for Remote audio and select "Play on remote computer" for Remote audio playback.

Regards,

[haider.rizwan]

Hi,

Above (mniqbal13) procedure worked for me.

thank you.

[anchoudh]

Hi,

I founf the below information.

"Virtual Audio Cable" worked fine for me when I needed to run CIPC on VMware. You can download it here:

http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.html

,demo version is quite enough.

Reference:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/301222

Hope it helps.

Anand

Pls rate helpful posts by clicking on the stars below the right answers !!

[akkey.kogepan]

Anand,

> By the way when you say that you are using UCCX/UCCE and if the phones are in the lab,

> why dont you use the CAD to perform the on/off-hook and transfer functionalities.

Unfortunately, CAD is just a CTI tool to invoke APIs and requires endpoint such as CIPC and hard phone to receive/transfer a call.

I often need to setup a lab for our customers when I can not temporarily prepare hard phones and client PCs at that time.　Therefore, CIPC on vmware is very useful in such cases, and allow us to help our customers easily.

> I founf the below information.

Thank you for the links.

I raised a question after reading that thread and I am already using VAC as I said.

It seems that those who posted in the thread are also at a loss recently running CIPC in vmware with the same problem and the situations have not been solved yet.

Does anyone help me out?

[andersonce]

Thanks for your posts. This may be a little late but I have found that for Windows 7, 64-bit, you need to run IPC in compatibility mode. It works fine if you choose Vista SP2. Also, for any of the Cisco products that require Java, make sure you have the 32-bit version of Java installed on your 64-bit OS. The 64-bit Java API's do not behave properly.

[Tyler Durden]

Ok I have spent 2 days messing around with ESXi trying to get IP Communicator to work in a VM environment. Can anyone point me to a fix for this? I'm trying to get it to work with virtualaudiostreaming.net and also VAC (Virtual Audio Cable). Do I also need to connect a USB to the Host and simulate a USB Headset??

The Reference in the above post has "ANSWERED" against it but no FIX on how to do it????

https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/301222

Any help would really make my day

[Tyler Durden]

Really - nobody has a fix for this?

[R. Clayton Miller · Accepted solution]

I have a Win7 64-bit VM on ESXi 5.0 and had the same issues with IPC 8.6.3.  I loaded Virtual Audio Streaming and verified it was the Windows default recording and sound.  IPC still would not find the windows default sound driver.  Using the suggestion above, I changed IPC to run in XPSP3 compatibility mode, run as Administrator (not sure if this did anything or not as my login user was already in the local admin group) and only then when I launched IPC I saw the tuning wizard recognize the default windows sound driver and complete so it could register.

I recommend you install VAS and IPC from the VM Console.  Then you must either:

1) Launch IPC from the VM Console

2) Set the Win 7 RDP client properties in Local Resources, Remote Audio Settings, Play on Remote Computer.  Then you can launch IPC from inside RDP.

Once you have IPC launched and active, you can then set the Win 7 RDP client audio settings back to Play on this Computer, reconnect with it, and then the VM will transmit the sound through RDP.

Now if you close IPC you must start back at step 1 again .

I was able to get IP Blue's softphone to work with Virtual Audio Streaming as well without the startup issues of IPC, however the trial version closes after 20 min.

[Gaurav Thakur]

This solution worked great for us thank you. 

[zekimmel]

THANK YOU!!

Service Pack compatibility mode fixed the issue for me as well. I was trying to put up a vm W7 workstation to verify calling works with a certain patch in my lab and I could not open CIPC until I read this forum and your answer and you saved me. Thank you again.

[Sharif Alkatib]

None of these steps helped. I tried every compatibility mode known to man and failed. This was on Windows 7 box with RDP set with the local resources AND using VAS.
 

I ended up using the included Jabber client which was already configured in my lab and I'm able to use that as a 1-line IP phone to make and receive calls on (with audio).