sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems VoiceMail Systems and Programming Upgrade Windows 2000 to XP Pro with Key Voice Technologies 11.1

Hello everyone,

We currently have a Windows 2000 Professional computer running Key Voice Version 11.1.3091.1 that is connected to our Comdial phone system. We are looking to finally upgrade to Windows XP Professional to get us through the next couple years until we change/upgrade our phone system.

What I was wondering is if the software is compatible with Windows XP.

I plan to duplicate the data to another drive before completing this process, just in case.

Any advice and assistance would be greatly appreciated.

First... WHY do you want to upgrade the VM's O/S? Is it not answering calls?

I have voicemails IN SERVICE, operating FLAWLESSLY, that are running OS/2 Warp. Remember that? 1994, barely predating Chicago?

***If it ain't broke, don't screw with it.***

If you insist on doing it anyway, be prepared to pay a tech long hours to rebuild it from scratch, even with the back-up, as things like software keys, Voice-card drivers and serial numbers tend to get lost and not survive back-ups.

Hi telephoneguy,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, in the industry that I work, we are not to have Windows 2000 machines operating on the network anymore. I completely agree with the mentality of don't fix what isn't broken, but according to the risk it brings, we have to.

To answer your question, the system is currently operating and working fine. I would love to be able to continue to run Windows 2000 or operate on OS/2 for that matter but, as stated above, we have to upgrade to XP somehow in the near future.

To clarify on what I mean by "duplicate the data," I mean bit-for-bit and block-for-block to another hard drive that is significantly larger than the original. This will allow me to install this new drive into the machine and still keep the original for "just in case" measures, untouched. So, if all else fails, I could go back to it.

So, after putting the data on the new drive and installing it in place of the current older drive, I was planning to run the Windows XP Upgrade disk and have Windows update itself. Therefore, I was going by the understanding that Windows would retain all drivers from the previous Windows 2000 drivers and devices.

My biggest concern is compatibility with software. I was curious if anyone knew of known issues with Windows XP and Key Voice v11.1.3091.1.

I figure that by the time XP has reached EOL, we will have moved onto another product anyway and maintenance will not be an issue.

Isn't XP already EOL? You can't purchase it anymore. :shrug:

Rls 11.1 was for Windows 2000. Rls 12.1 is required for XP support. Your key will have to be upgraded/replaced. PM me if you need support on this issue.

Windows XP will be supported through 2014.

The support for W2K ended last year.

It's amazing how versatile OS/2 really is, even today, if one has a little patience...I love it...

I'm assuming you have it on the network for programming or notification. Reconstruct your network to firewall it completely off from any access other than maintenance personnel and call it good. It is after all only a stand alone voice mail system, not an integral part of the network.

I'm also still running DOS, OS2, Warp, NT3.51/4.0 and Win 2K at a lot of locations. In many cases good old DOS was by far and away the best OS for the smaller units. Windows certainly wasn't an upgrade.

I can't think of any reason whatsoever to spend the money required to do anything. Save it for eventual replacement.

Good advice unless they are using the unified messaging portion of the Interchange. Also lots of networks are deleting support of Win2K and older on their systems thus requiring XP or newer.

I'm with Deltron on this one. Simply unplug the NIC and leave the O/S alone.

A bitwise copy -- I've always favored Ghost (which operates on Digital Research's DRDOS, btw: I had to point that out) -- might or might not work. The reason is that V/M manufacturers are very sneaky SOBs, who don't want people copying their software.

Some have gone so far as to use tracks that are not normally writable (but are readable) in order to hide registration keys and so forth. I know that this may seem a bit snarky, but I have never seen a good outcome to screwing with a Voicemail O/S, and it's five flavors of a bad idea.

Something to remember if you go ahead -- beware of dongles. Most voicemails use a serial dongle of some sort as a security key, and I've even seen a couple of disasters resulting from a migration of the voicemail onto another form factor which didn't support 25-pin serial ports.

If unplugging the NIC is not permissible for some abstruse reason, tell the powers-that-be that the entire system must be replaced in order to upgrade it safely. That's the best advice I can give you.

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all the suggestions and warnings. I ended up going ahead with the procedure last Friday night and everything went well.

I did a bit-for-bit (and block-for-block) copy of the hard drive to another drive (makes the data identical on both).

I took the new drive that I copied the data on and hooked it up to the VM server (replacing the drive that was in there before).

I booted it up and ensured it still worked in Windows 2000. I stuck in the XP Upgrade Disk and did a Pre-Upgrade check where it found one application that was out of date (which was a remote access program we do not use anymore).

So, I uninstalled the unwanted application, rebooted, and when it booted back into Win2k, I ran the XP Upgrade from the disk.

It took quite some time but when it finished...it came up with a working copy of XP. I waited and the VM system didn't come up. So, I waited and it still didn't...checked Event Log and found a process that failed to start.

So, before I did anything else, I rebooted and everything came up within a few minutes after booting!

So, I can safely say I upgraded to XP without any problems. For anyone reading this later... YMMV...and be sure to make a duplicate copy...using a low-level duplicator. Ghost may work but I don't like it since it costs money. So, I use a trusted free alternative (dd) .

Again, thanks to everyone for your input.