Uncle Frank’s Spotlight: Magicjack Phone Service Review

I have seen the Magicjack tv commercial and I was thinking about trying it, but I wanted to wait until I heard a little more about it first. Thank you for informing us about the product. I am going to order it, because 19.95 a year for phone service is a really great deal.

I have tried a couple of other free VoIP services and none of them were really any good. Lost connections and jumbled reception were the norm. I would rather pay for reliable service than go the totally free route again.

Sounds good if it would work, but if you have to keep your land phone , would it savse you money?

We bought two Magicjacks and have had the service for a month. Have one for my laptop and one for the spouses laptop. This little device does what it is suppose to do. The only problem that occurred, was that we were trying to use the old analog phone, which caused echoes, interruptions, dropped calls, etc.

Our cousin has two Magicjacks as well, and it was her who told us about the Magicjack, which we thought we would try. She suggested that we try a digital phone and since we have changed phones, we have not had a problem.

We have cancelled our land phone service, AT&T, for the Magicjack. In addition to the Magicjack service, we have cell phones, which we were able to downgrade the cell phone service plan.

Tried Skype and was not satisfied with their service, dropped calls, echo, repeats, delays, etc.

The set-up for our Magicjack is: 5.8 GHz Digital Cordless Phone, which allows us to walk through the house or outside while using the Magicjack. It\'s as though we are using a cell phone. We have the two year service plan.

The Magicjack is a definate savings!

I bought the magicjack and was unable to get a local area code. This would mean that anyone local calling me would have to pay a toll fee as the assigned area code is different than my local area code. I have a cell phone and I wanted to get rid od my landline as it cost me $29 a month without long distance. What good is it if you have a cell phone ?

I have had trouble hearing clearly on the system. Not all calls go through. I am using a digital phone. The biggest thing is I don\'t know where to go for questions let alone answers. This is my only land line. I want it to work but I honestly can not recommend it. Last I agree with Walt on the Area Code why does it have to be long distance?

MagicJack is inexpensive but the sound quality was lacking. I also compared it to Skype and found skype to be better in terms of sound and less voice delay. I returned MagicJack. Even though skype is more expensive, it\'s worth it.

I just have this little magicjack device for three weeks now and it really good. For the first week it give me a little problem mostly there were weather condition problem in our area and we have an internet outage. The device works great, voice is clear and very affordable for $19 a year which will save me hundreds of dollars for phone bill and beside for emergency purposes if there's no internet I have a cellphone to use which most of the people nowadays have. So far for three weeks of using it I will say "Get it and save money".

mine broke and they wont send replacement

I have had mine for 3 months, works great. Very Clear reception always from the phone. Have some echo some times with people on other internet based phones if the are not on magic jack system. I believe that maybe the ISP who offers the other phone system on the internet is at fault. Thats just a guess though. No evidence to support that conclusion. A 5.8ghz analog phone is what I have been using but now reading about no problems with digital phones has got me wondering. People say that the volume is low when I speaking on phone to them. But I hear them fine. That is the only problem I have but I think I will try the digital solution.
Other than that this is a worthwhile savings in phone service.

Call Forwarding is configured by going to http://my.magicjack.com, logging into your account, and enabling that option there. You can only unconditionally forward (i.e., all calls always get forwarded). There is no option to forward on busy or forward during certain times of the day.

Voice quality for listening at both ends has, so far, been good (better than my cell phone). However, there remain connectivity problems. A caller hears 4 rings, their voicemail interrupts, the caller hears 2 clicks, and then dead air. Their voicemail picked up the call but never issued my greeting or its automated (female) voice to let the caller leave a message. Sometimes the caller never hears the ring tones and instead just dead air and figures rightly that there was no usable connection. Sometimes after the 4 rings, they get a busy signal (so the call itself wasn't busy but YMax's voicemail was busy). Once the call gets connected between me and the other end, it's a good connection with decent voice quality. But if the caller ends up in voicemail, operation is very flaky. Also, the recording levels for their voicemail is weak. Your greetings will sound faint to the caller. Their recorded messages will sound faint when you listen to them. The .wav file they attached to the e-mail to notify you of a new message is faint. Yes, I can turn up the volume on my host but then ALL sounds are at maximum and I'm not interested in blaring myself out of my chair for other sounds played through my speakers or blowing them out. Plus, changing the volume on my computer doesn't help improve volume when I call in to listen to my messages and it doesn't help callers hear my greeting. Their voicemail is flaky and just plain sucks. I want it disabled but YMax won't disable their voicemail system per account (i.e., you are always stuck with their voicemail picking up your calls after 4 rings - if the caller even hears the rings and gets past the 2-click & dead air problem). Their voicemail picks up on the 4th ring. To obviate their voicemail, you will need to set your answering machine to pickup before the 4th ring. I've yet to see an answering maching that picks up on 3 rings. Your choice is usually no answer, 2 rings, or 4 rings. So I have to set my answering machine to 2 rings. That gives me 6 seconds to pickup the call before the answering machine grabs it (6 seconds average between rings, the first ring starts the countdown to the 2nd ring for when the answering machine will pickup). So I end up picking up the call to interrupt the person that heard my greeting and was starting to leave a message).

The next part is even longer. It documents what I've gone through trying to make their softphone a polite application. Ymax through their MagicJack service wants to be in your face and has accomplished that very well. You pay for their service (albeit cheaply) yet they want you to see their spam, er, ads in the left-pane in their softphone. They are as rude in the behavior of their softphone as they are guady and amateurish in their web site's design. So I went through several steps trying to get them out of my face and interfering with my work.

My MagicJack Tips
(For bulleting: * = 1st indent level, o = 2nd indent level, - = 3rd indent level)

#1: How to start MagicJack minimized to a tray icon

The install of MagicJack creates a shortcut on your desktop. That runs the magicJackLoader.exe program. What this program does (based on observation) is to re-setup MagicJack. This overwrites/replaces files in the path where you installed MagicJack so deleting files hoping to get rid of the load-time banner windows that spam aboutMagicJack, like "Tell your friends", will return if you ever run this reloader program. You only need to run the reloader if you have problems *using* MagicJack. You don't need to reload it every time you start Windows and log into your account. All you need to use MagicJack is to load their softphone (the dialpad you see open on your desktop for MagicJack).

The MagicJack device, when plugged into a USB port, will create 2 USB drives. They are assigned drive letters beginning at the next available value after the hard drive assignments. If you have hard drives C: and D: assigned, MagicJack creates drives E: and F:. The 2nd USB hard drive is where MagicJack's softphone (the dialpad you see load on your desktop) stores your contact and call log information. It is the data and operational drive. The first USB drive is used to install or reload MagicJack. When you run magicJackLoader.exe (the shortcut they give you on your desktop), autorun.inf is read by Windows’ auto-play function which says to execute the autorun.exe program to perform a [repair] install or reload of the program. That's why trying to modify or delete files in the install path for the program on your hard drive is fruitless because they'll just replace the missing files or step atop those that you modified. The first USB drive is not required to actually run MagicJack. It is used to install/reload MagicJack.

The install/reload program puts MagicJack’s files under the Application Data path under the user's profile path (%userprofile%\Application Data) where the user has permissions to those files, including creating them there and executing them from there. To minimize MagicJack’s softphone when you login and MagicJack gets loaded:

* With MagicJack running, use its Menu button to display its config menu. Under Advanced Users, select the "Minimize to tray" option. This will minimize the softphone when you minimize the softphone's window.
* The install creates a desktop icon named "magicJack". Rename it to "Reload magicJack". That is what it really does. Only use this shortcut if you have problems using MagicJack (after which you will need to reexecute these steps to get it to start minimized again).
* Kill the MagicJack processes. They don't provide a nice stop or shutdown function within the program. Use Task Manager's Processes tab to kill:
magicjack.exe
mjsetup.exe
* Create a new shortcut to start magicJack (rather than reinstall/reload it). The following is all on one line:
"%userprofile%\Application Data\mjusbsp\magicJack.exe" /foreground /scf _magicJackPersonalDataRoot F:\magicJack
The default install path for MagicJack is under the user's profile path (as noted above). The command-line parameters are taken from the SJphone softphone of which MagicJack's softphone is a derivative. You are identifying the root path for the user's data store (contacts, call log, favorites, etc.). If you look at the 2nd USB drive created when the MagicJack device is plugged into a USB port, there is a \magicjack folder under which the user's data is stored. The drive is whatever letter was assigned to the 2nd USB drive by the MagicJack device. Say you have hard drives C: and D:, so drive E: gets used by MagicJack for its install/reload drive and the next one is drive F: for its data drive. So change F: to whatever is MagicJack's 2nd USB drive that has the \magicjack data folder.
* Name this new shortcut "Start magicJack". This will start the magicJack.exe program (instead of the magicJackLoader.exe program). As a result, you won't see the adware banner windows while MagicJack starts up (because you aren't reloading it and instead are starting it). The magicJack.exe program must be running to enable the MagicJack device to handle your phone calls.
* Right-click on this new "Start magicJack" shortcut and select Properties. In the Run option, select "Minimized". This will minimize the program's window when it loads. Since you configured the advance settings in MagicJack to minimize to a tray icon when minimized and are you are asking this shortcut to minimze the application's window, MagicJack gets loaded by this shortcut and then minimizes to a tray icon. No more wasting desktop real estate on the softphone that you don't need until later and not having to manually minimize it to get it out of the way as a tray icon.
* If you don't even want to see the softphone's tray icon, configure the system notification area (aka system tray) to always hide that icon.
* Run msconfig.exe and go under the Startup tab. Deselect (uncheck) the cdloader2.exe program. That is the loader program that gets ran when you log into your Windows account (it is under the user's Run registry key). You don't need MagicJack reloading its files when you login. You just want to run it.
o msconfig does not delete startup entries in the registry. Instead it moves them to its own holding key under:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MSConfig\startupreg
Windows won't find the entry under the normal Run key so that item won't get loaded. When you reenable the entry in msconfig, it moves it out of its holding key and back to the corresponding Run key. So msconfig hides the item rather than deletes it.
o If you don't want someone to accidentally run msconfig and reenable this item, don't use msconfig and instead delete the cdloader2.exe entry in the registry under:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
* You already killed the MagicJack processes. So now start MagicJack by using the "Start MagicJack" shortcut that you just created that runs magicJack.exe instead of magicJackLoader.exe. No more ad banners on startup. The softphone loads quicker without the banners. The softphone loads but immediately minimizes to a tray icon (which you can elect to hide its tray icon).

The above only addresses how to startup Windows and/or login to your account without the nuisance of their softphone sitting atop your desktop and in your face when you login. Instead it will start and minimize to a tray icon when you login.

Because an upgrade or update file downloaded from MagicJack's site can result in reinstalling or reloading its software, you may have to reexecute the above steps to get rid of their cdloader2.exe that is under the Run registry key to load MagicJack when you login along with its ad banners, rename their shortcut that runs magicJackLoader.exe, and create your own shortcut to run magicJack.exe with the command-line parameters shown above.

#2: Keep MagicJack from reloading when you plug it in (Or, How to Disable Auto-Play)

The above will be undone if you unplug the MagicJack device and plug it back it. Why? It is configured to behave like a CD/DVD device which will autorun a setup program when it is recognized after being inserted. The autorun feature is part of Windows ease-of-use but also represents a security risk; see http://www.csnc.ch/static/download/misc/u3_technology_v1.0.pdf. Any drive that can autorun to start an application can result in installing malware on your system, or worse yet to run the program without doing an installation so few or no traces are left on your computer. When you plug in the MagicJack device, it creates 2 USB drives. The first one contains the autorun files. This will reload MagicJack on your computer performing the same actions as magicJackLoader.exe which will show the banner ads when MagicJack loads and re-adds the Run registry key to execute cdloader2.exe when you login (to show those banner ads). Once you did the initial install of MagicJack's software onto your computer or after performing an update/upgrade which might do the same thing, you don't need to be installing their software anymore. Above describes how to stop using their magicJackLoader.exe program with the shortcut they defined on your desktop or when their cdloader2.exe runs when you login. Now the issue of running their setup again (reload) when you plug in their device needs to be addressed.

Under both the HKLM (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) and HKCU (HKEY_CURRENT_USER) registry hives are entries on enabling or disabling the auto-play feature of various drive types under Windows control. Note that the HKCU hive doesn't really exist. It is a pseudo-hive. There are only 2 real hives: HKLM and HKU (HKEY_USERS). The other pseudo-hives are compiled as an aggregate of values extracted from these 2 real hives. However, it is often more convenient to edit the HKCU hive because you don't need to figure out your Windows account's SID (security identifier) to know which one it is under HKU (but obviously any edits to HKCU result in changes only for the currently logged in user and not for other user's Windows accounts). Edits you make under HKLM apply to all Windows accounts. Edits you make under HKCU apply only to the Windows account under which you are logged when you make those edits. For most users, this key only exists under the HKU hive (and hence under the copy of it under the HKCU pseudo-hive).

Microsoft's KB articles 136214 and 330135 discuss the auto-play feature and how to edit the registry to alter on which drive types it is enabled. The registry key of interest under both the HKLM and HKCU hives is:

Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutoRun

The value here is a bitmask. The binary value is used and each bit represents the setting for a particular drive type. For example, under Windows XP, the default value is 91 hexadecimal which is 10010001 binary. The following table explains the meaning of the bits of the DWORD value (a bit that is set means that drive type is disabled for auto-play):

bit 0: DRIVE_UNKNOWN 0x01 (00000001 binary)
bit 1: DRIVE_NO_ROOT_DIR 0x02 (00000010 binary)
bit 2: Removable Drives 0x04 (00000100 binary)
bit 3: Harddiscs 0x08 (00001000 binary)
bit 4: Network Drives 0x10 (00010000 binary)
bit 5: CD/DVD ROM 0x20 (00100000 binary)
bit 6: RAMDISK 0x40 (01000000 binary)
bit 7*: Unknown drive type 0x80 (10000000 binary)
Example: All drive types 0xFF (11111111 binary)

Bit 7 is reserved for future drive types as yet undefined. That's why there are 2 unknown drive type bits. Bit 0 represents a drive for whose type cannot be determined.

The HKLM settings override the HKCU settings, so a bit set in the HKLM copy of this registry key will override the same bit in the HKCU copy of this registry key. It is your choice to alter the auto-play for only your Windows account (under HKCU) or for everyone's Windows account (under HKLM). As can be seen in the above bitmask table, a particular bit represent for what drive type the auto-play feature gets disabled. By using multiple bits in the mask, you can disable auto-play on multiple drive types. The table already shows the multiple bits being set for a value of 0xFF (11111111 binary) to disable auto-play on all drives. If you want auto-play disabled only for removable and CD/DVD, you would use 0x24 (00100100 binary).

The default for Windows XP is 0x91 (10010001 binary) which disables auto-play on the drive_unknown, network, and unknown drive types because their bits are set (to 1). Conversely, that means auto-play is enabled for the drive_no_rootdir, removable drives, hard disk, network, CD/DVD, and ramdisk drive types because their bits are not set. Under Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003, the bitmask is 0x95 (10010101 binary) so the network drive type is also disabled for auto-play. To disable auto-play on the CD/DVD drive types (which U3 USB drives emulate), you could set the NoDriveTypeAutoRun registry key to a value where bit 5 is set to 1. For Windows XP, the 0x91 (10010001) value becomes 0xB1 (10110001). Setting the bitmask requires you understand binary values and know which bit represents which drive type. Unless you have an article like this at hand, you won't know what value to use for the NoDriveTypeAutoRun key. Although not as complete regarding control over all bits within the mask, there are easier methods of manipulating this value without having to edit the registry. One is by defining a security policy. The other is by using the TweakUI utility from Microsoft.

Rather than edit the registry, you can define a security policy that covers the auto-play function. Run the group policy editor (gpedit.msc) and navigate to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System. Double-click or open the "Turn off AutoPlay" option. In the properties dialog, you can enable this option (you are enabling a disable option). Select "Enable" to enable the "Turn off AutoPlay" funtion. When Enabled is selected, you can then choose to turn off auto-play on all drives or just CD/DVD drive types. Either will work to stop MagicJack's autorun.inf from being read from their first USB drive that then runs the autorun.exe program.

The TweakUI utility can be downloaded from Microsoft but only works for 32-bit versions of Windows. In TweakUI, go to the My Computer -> Autoplay node in the navigation tree and then choose the Drives node if you want to disable auto-play for particular drives or choose the Types node if you want to disable auto-play on all drives of a type. When you plug in the MagicJack device, it creates 2 USB drives starting with their first available driver letter after the hard drive assignments. The first USB drive created by MagicJack is the one with the autorun.inf file that runs the autorun.exe program to install or reload the MagicJack software. Using the Drives node in TweakUI, you could disable auto-play on just this first USB drive created by MagicJack; however, if partitioning changes on the hard disks, you add more hard disks, you change drive letter assignments in Disk Manager (diskmgmt.msc), or for any other reason the drive letter assignments change, the particular drive letter on which you disabled auto-play may no longer be the first USB drive created by the MagicJack device when you plug it in. If you can survive Windows without its auto-play feature, like simply right-clicking the autorun.inf file to select Install or running the autorun.exe program (or whatever is specified within the autorun.inf file, like setup.exe), then disable auto-play on all drives of the same type. Using the Types node in TweakUI, you can select to disable auto-play on all CD/DVD drive types and/or on all removable drive types. Deselect (to disable) auto-play on these drive types.

After the registry edits, or using a security policy, or using TweakUI to alter on which drive types where auto-play is disabled, you will need to reboot Windows. Now when you plug in the MagicJack device, it creates its 2 USB drives but does not automatically execute its autorun.exe program to setup/reload the MagicJack software. Of course, that also means you won't be able to do the automatic install when you first get the MagicJack but you can simply run their autorun.exe program rather than have auto-play in Windows do it for you. Auto-play is a convenience feature but not mandatory to run a program from the install media or device. Just run the program that starts up when you insert the media or device that auto-play would have started. Look in autorun.inf file if it isn't obvious when exploring the media or drive to see which program would have been started by auto-play.

If you only plug in the MagicJack device the first time you get it and will never unplug and replug that device into your computer then you don't need to worry about auto-play reexecuting the autorun.exe program that will step atop the existing install of MagicJack's software to reload it again (and undo your changes to MagicJack’s load behaviors). If you plug it in and leave it in, disabling auto-play won't have any effect on your customized setup mentioned above under the "How to start MagicJack minimized to a tray icon" section. Of course, if you move the MagicJack to another computer then auto-play will reinstall/reload its software if auto-play is enabled for that drive type on that computer. If you use their web-based chat for support and they have you unplug the MagicJack (usually as part of their scripted troubleshooting guideline to shotgun possible solutions to fix a problem) then you will hit the auto-play behavior again that reinstalls/reloads their software and undoes the above setup to minimize MagicJack when it loads (during your Windows login or when you use their default shortcut). Their upgrades will also probably step on your customized setup.

#3: How to keep MagicJack's softphone from interferring with your work or gameplay

You need to have MagicJack's softphone running to make use of the MagicJack device. If the magicjack.exe process isn't running, you can't use the MagicJack device. Everytime you make or receive a phone call, their softphone will open to occupy space on your screen. It if was minimized to a tray icon, it restores its window to show the softphone user interface (UI). If you were working in a word document, spreadsheet, composing or reading e-mail, or whatever you were doing on your computer, their softphone will steal focus and show atop all other windows. This rude behavior isn't a big deal when making a call because you are actively involved in that action when the appearance of their softphone's UI is expected; however, it can steal away focus from the current application which can result in corrupted data, especially for graphical editing programs or when playing a game. While you might tolerate the nuisance of their softphone's UI popping up when you make a call, what is worse is that they open their softphone's UI when you receive a call. Obviously you don't have control over when someone chooses to call you. It will inevitably be when you can't afford or highly not desire interruption with your current work or gameplay. Get a call, lose your graphical editing because the display got corrupted, or die in that critical part of gameplay because you got dumped back to the Windows desktop to see their softphone while the game continued playing and killed off your character. It's your computer and your property but MagicJack's creators want to control it.

One trick to keeping their softphone out of your face is to use the MagicBlock utility from http://vvisoft.com/. You can download it from their web site or from CNet's http://www.download.com. What this utility does is to immediately minimize the softphone's UI back to a tray icon. Sounds great because you will no longer be nuisanced with their softphone suddenly popping up on the screen when you make or receive a call. Problem is that there may be times when you do want to use their softphone, like when adding a contact or using those contacts to make a call, or look at the call log to see who you called you or who called you and possibly match it up with a contact so you see their name instead of their phone number. If you never want to use their softphone (and a headset connected to your computer) and instead you always want use only the telephone connected to the MagicJack then this utility will keep their softphone subdued as a tray icon. It really doesn't eliminate their softphone from appearing but just makes it go away right away. The softphone pops up and immediately gets minimized back to a tray icon. The problem with that technique is that focus will still be stolen away from your current application. Version 1.2 is supposed to "retain focus on the window you're working on after the MagicJack window attempts to popup". Well, that is not accurate. Focus is still stolen by the softphone when it appears, MagicBlock immediately minimizes that window back to a tray icon, and MagicBlock then returns focus back to the prior window that had it. However, losing focus can cause problems in an application. Say you are playing a game, you get a call, the softphone tries to appear which throws you out of the game and back to the Windows desktop, MagicBlock re-minimizes it to a tray icon, and then MagicBlock tries to return focus back to the game. However, the game may exit or crash when it gets exited from its display screen, or its graphics are corrupted when you flip out to the Windows desktop and flip back into the game's screen, or simply returning focus does not return you to the game's screen. So you're left at the Windows desktop or with a corrupted or otherwise unusable game screen. Similar problems can occur for any fullscreened application. So MagicBlock works if you can tolerate having MagicJack's softphone momentarily flash on your screen and your current applications don't mind losing and regaining focus.

4t Tray Minimizer (http://www.4t-niagara.com/tray.html) also has the ability to control windows for running programs. It has been suggested as an equivalent to MagicBlock (but also manages other programs and their windows). Both try to manage the windows that programs open.

Another solution is to run MagicJack as an NT service rather than a background application that loads when you login. This requires you use the srvany utility from Microsoft's Resource Kit to run magicjack.exe as a service and that the service is ran under a different account than the one under which you log into Windows. As a service, MagicJack would load when you start Windows, not when you eventually login. So it is running before you login and is available for everyone that logs onto that Windows host. They don't have to wait for MagicJack to load after logging in. Running as a service is not the complete solution since MagicJack wants to shove their softphone's UI in your face after you login and when you make or receive a call. You need to run the MagicJack service under a different account so its screens show up there - except you won't be logged under that other account to see the softphone when it would otherwise appear. MagicJack loads when Windows starts and before you even login. MagicJack's softphone won't appear under your login because that service runs under a different account.

* Login under your own account (that has admin privileges).
* Get the Resource Kit (rktools.exe) from Microsoft's download site (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en).
* Run rktools.exe to extract its file to whatever path you want, like "C:\Program Files\Resource Kit".
* Create a new Windows account named magicjack using the User Accounts applet (run "control.exe userpasswords2"). Do NOT use a blank password. It cannot be blank when you later configure the MagicJack service to run under this new account.
* Temporarily assign the magicjack account to the Administrators group so it has admin privileges.
* Logon under the new magicjack account and plug in the the MagicJack adapter to install its software under this account.
* Delete the cdloader2.exe entry under the following Run key in the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
* Now convert the MagicJack to an NT service. A tutorial on how to do this is at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/137890.
* Log out of the magicjack account and login under your own account (which has admin privileges).
* Change the magicjack account back to a user account (i.e., remove admin privileges from the magicjack account).
* Configure the MagicJack service to logon using the magicjack account:
o Run the Services applet (service.msc, or Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services).
o Select the MagicJack service that you created above using the tutorial.
o In its properties under the Log On tab, select "This account" and enter magicjack as the account name. Be sure to specify the login password for the magicjack account (it cannot be blank).
There are more features in softphones than are supported by the MagicJack service.

You now have:

- MagiJack loads as an NT service when Windows starts rather than when you login. It will be available to all accounts.
- MagicJack runs under a separate "magicjack" Windows account. You won't ever see its softphone suddenly grab focus away from your current work to popup in your face. It's doing that over in the magicjack account but you are logged in under your own account.
- Because it is running under a different account, you don't have to be concerned about going through the steps to get it minimized when it first loads.
- If you need to perform upgrades, login under the magicjack account and do them there. However, because they may want to reinstall the Run key to execute the cdloader2.exe program, run msconfig after an upgrade to ensure that cdloader2.exe is disabled, or delete it under the Run registry key.
- If you need to use their softphone to update your contacts list or review the call logs, logon under the magicjack account to see their softphone's UI.
- MagicJack is loaded, your telephone works that is attached to the MagicJack device, and you are not bothered with their softphone's UI interferring with your work or games. You've forced polite their otherwise rude program.

If your Windows version support Fast User Switching, you can logon to the magicjack account to look at and use their softphone. Then you can simply flip back and forth between your account and the magicjack account when you want to hide or use their softphone. However, leaving another account running consumes more resources (CPU cycles, memory).

#3a: Using a scheduled task to run MagicJack under a different account
(This is how I do it now.)

The idea above is to have MagicJack’s softphone run as a service so it loads when Windows starts up, and the softphone’s UI opens under an account that you are not logged under so you won’t see its UI. However, you don’t need to make MagicJack into a service to have it load on startup or to have it run under a different account. You can do the same using the Task Scheduler included in Windows. You configure a scheduled event to run MagicJack when Windows starts and to run under a different account.

* Under your own account, plug in the MagicJack and complete its installation. You could do that under the other account (created in a later step) but it will work installing it under your account to put it under you “%userprofile%\Application Data” path.
* Use msconfig.exe to disable the cdloader2.exe startup item, or use regedit.exe to delete it under the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run key. You are not going to use the Run key to load MagicJack and instead you will be using Task Scheduler.
o When you login, you don’t want to execute cdloader2.exe under the Run key for your account. You are using the scheduled event for that.
o While you will be running magicJackLoader.exe (under the other account), and it restores some settings because it first reloads MagicJack before running it, the Run key gets modified for the other account, not for your account. You aren’t normally logging in under that account so its Run key entries aren’t executed. When you do logon under the other account, magicjack.exe is already running and won’t get loaded again.
* Run “control.exe userpasswords2” to get into account management.
o Create a new account called magicjack (or whatever name that you like).
o In the wizard to create a new magicjack account:
- Set the password. It must not be left blank (since scheduled events will need a non-blank password for the RunAs shell).
- Add the magicjack account under the Administrators group. This is to allow permissions for MagicJack to run and also allow its access to your files under your %userprofile% which are barred for normal users but not for administrators.
o In the User Accounts dialog, under the Advanced tab, click the Advanced button (or run “%windir%\system32\lusrmgr.msc”) to load the Local Users and Groups applet. In the properties for the magicjack account, enable the following options:
- User cannot change password.
- Password never expires.
* Logout of your account and login to the magicjack account. Creating an account does not generate the %userprofile% directory. That requires logging into the account. Do any customization that you like and then logout of the magicjack account and login to your own account.
* Kill any MagicJack processes that my be running under your account (magicjack.exe and mjsetup.exe).
* Open Task Scheduler (). Use the File -> New -> Scheduled Task menu to create a new scheduled event called “Load Magicjack”. Edit the properties of this event as follows:
o Task tab:
- Command = "%userprofile%\Application Data\mjusbsp\magicJackLoader.exe" (or wherever you installed MagicJack to find the .exe file).
- Run as: \magicjack
- Click on the “Set Password” button and enter the password that you specified when you created the magicjack account.
o Schedule tab:
- Schedule task: At System Startup
o Settings tab:
- Disable all options under this tab.
* In Windows Explorer, right-click on the folder where MagicJack got installed (default is “%userprofile%\Application Data\mjusbsp”) and select Properties in the context menu.
o Under the Security tab, ensure that the Administrators group (under which the magicjack account got added) is listed as having full control.

Now reboot Windows. The scheduled event (defined under your account) is configured to run on Windows startup but the MagicJack process runs under the magicjack account, not yours. So the magicjack.exe process is running under the magicjack account to support using VOIP and the telephone connected to the MagicJack device but the softphone won’t ever appear in your account that you login. When you make or receive a call, the softphone opens but it does so under the magicjack account but there is no desktop for that account since you didn’t log under that account.

You have MagicJack loading on Windows startup but it runs under a different account. Since the scheduled event is defined under your account, you can disable it should you decide that you need to start Windows without loading MagicJack, like when troubleshooting other problems. Voilá, no more softphone getting in your face. If you need to look at the softphone’s call logs or use its other features, you can log into the magicjack account to access the softphone. You could even use Fast User Switching to flip back and forth between your account and the magicjack account (but that wastes resources so only do this when you are initially using MagicJack until you get it configured how you want, or if you incessantly need access to the call log).

MagicBlock and similar window management methods have their flaws, one of which is they try to manage a window when it would be better if they never had to do that management in the first place. Creating an NT service using the Resource Kit and srvany is beyond the skills of most users. Most users should be able to figure out how create another Windows account, put it in the Administrator group, and create a scheduled event in Task Scheduler so it seems the easiest method of hiding the softphone but still allow access when needed by allowing the user to log under the other account. Plus the user doesn’t have to do anything special to install MagicJack (other than remove cdloader2.exe under the Run key).

#4: How to get at more functions in the softphone

MagicJack, as delivered, uses 2 skins: small and big. Those are the dialpads views that you normally see when the softphone appears on the screen. There are functions in the softphone that are hidden when you use these skins. If you don't use the skins, you can get at the hidden functions - but then the softphone isn't very pretty, either. To get at the unskinned interface, rename the big.skn and small.skn files in the folder where MagicJack got installed (usually "%userprofile%\Application Data\mjusbsp").

To use the unskinned interface, kill the magicjack.exe process, rename the .skn files, and restart magicjack.exe. When using the simpler unskinned interface, any saved contacts are not shown. They reappeared when the skin files are renamed back to the original filenames. The Contact button in the unskinned interface actually shows the call log (with a button to link to Phonebook). The Contact link in the list pane in the skinned interface shows my stored contacts (the Calls link shows the call log). The unskinned interface has no ad/spam pane.

To get rid of the spam using the unskinned interface along with some additional functions (and lose some) but access to stored contacts is lost. The unskinned interface doesn’t allow access to its Phonebook. So use the unskinned interface to access the hidden functions but use the skinned interface for normal use if you like that interface better.

The skinned interface adds the "Minimize to tray" option. While it is honored by the unskinned interface when you click the "X" titlebar button (and not the Exit button), the option is not honored when MagicJack is first loaded with this option enabled when using the unskinned interface. So the /min parameter, if it were used in the following 'start' command in the batch file provided, will not load MagicJack with it already minimized to a tray icon. Instead the unskinned interface opens minimized to a taskbar icon. When you later use "X" to close its window, it minimizes to a tray icon. I decided to leave off the /min parameter to the 'start' command so you could see the switch between skinned and unskinned interfaces.

To make switching skins easier, I wrote a simple batch file. Create a batch file named chgskins.bat in the same folder in which MagicJack was installed (usually "%userprofile%\Application Data\mjusbsp"). Put the following lines into that batch file:

@echo off

rem - 2nd USB drive created by MagicJack (its data drive). Just the letter, no colon.
set MJdrv=F
rem - Command to load MagicJack.
set MJcmd=magicJack.exe /foreground /scf _magicJackPersonalDataRoot %MJdrv%:\magicJack

echo Stopping MagicJack ...
taskkill /im magicjack.exe

echo Swapping skins for MagicJack ...
if exist big.skn (
ren big.skn big.ORIG-skn
goto ChkSmall
)
ren big.ORIG-skn big.skn
:ChkSmall
if exist small.skn (
ren small.skn small.ORIG-skn
goto Restart
)
ren small.ORIG-skn small.skn

:Restart
echo Restarting Magicjack ...
if exist %MJdrv%:\magicJack\nul (
start "magicJack" /b %MJcmd%
) else (
echo Unable to find 2nd USB drive for MagicJack data store.
echo You will need to restart MagicJack.
)
set MJdrv=
set MJcmd=
echo Ready!

Be aware that some lines may get wrapped by whatever client you are using to view this document. Turn off line wrapping, if possible, to see the unwrapped lines. This assumes the client has not forced physical line wrapping by inserting linebreaks, like reading this document in a newsreader for a Usenet post containing this code. For example, the "set MJcmd=..." command is all on one line.

Run the .bat file when you want to switch between skinned and unskinned interfaces. Because the .bat file was saved in the same folder as the other files, relative pathing can be used to find those other files. You can even create a shortcut on your desktop or in a Start menu folder to make it easier to switch interfaces. On the load, you have to tell MagicJack where to find its data store hence the need to specify the MJdrv value in that batch file. I don't know of a way to easily go searching for which drive has this folder without adding more complication to the batch file, like using a 'for' command to loop through all drive letters from C to Z checking if "\magicjack" exists as a subdirectory. It is the 2nd USB drive created by the MagicJack device when plugged in. Unless you change partitioning on your hard disks, add more hard disks, or add other devices to your computer that alter or add more drive letters, this batch file will continue to work. If drive letters change, you'll have to update the value of the MJdrv variable in this batch file.

I did find an anomaly when using the batch file to switch skins: the switch doesn't happen although the .skn files were renamed before magicjack.exe got restarted. It appears that MagicJack remembers what skin was inuse at the time it is exited while minimized. If you use the batch file to attempt to swap skins by stopping MagicJack while it is minimized, it will still be using the same skin when it gets restarted by the batch file. The skin change is effected only if MagicJack is stopped while showing its UI. So open the softphone UI so you can see it and then run the batch file to switch skins.

Hi VanguardLH -

Wow, that was quite some read. Thank you for taking the time to write and leave such a detailed instructional response. I am sure other MagicJack users will find your techniques useful.

God Bless,

Nelson Doyle

I am very much intrested in the magicjack but I live outside the
USA and Canada. Can the magicjack work for me in my country Trinidad and Tobago, I am welling to pay for it. My friends and family are also intrested.

Hi Gail -

I am not sure exactly. I would suggest visiting the Magicjack.com website and read about their services outside of the US or Canada. I believe that Magicjack offers a service to people of other countries, but at a different cost, but still cheaper than the regular phone service rates.

On their television commercials they suggest to send your friends and families the Magicjack, so that you and them can save money on long distance phone service. However, I am just not sure how the program works for residents of other countries.

I hope that this helped you at least somewhat.

God Bless,

Nelson Doyle