Having written an article about the S8602 in the last issue, John Lounton, our Project and Technology Support Manager, called me to break the news that Inter-Tel had just uploaded a release version of the latest softphone to their FTP site. Billed as Vista compatible but installable on XP, I had to give it a try.

	Download
	S8602 Softphone GUI Ver 1.0.1.12 Vista compatible Upgrade

Please note: This file will not work unless you already have a licensed softphone and your system is set up for softphone working. This download is aimed at people who wish to upgrade an existing Inter-Tel softphone.

I installed it first on a Vista test bed machine at our Cheltenham head office and forwarded it to a customer who has been waiting for the latest version on the proviso that he let me know how well it worked. He called me back within half an hour and confirmed what I had found. Not only did it install easily on Vista, it also had a separate setting that allowed the ringing to be sent to a different speaker source, ie. the speakers on the computer. This had always been an issue on all previous versions of the software as you could only set one target for the audio, ie built in PC / laptop speakers and microphone (impractical) or the headset. The implications of the latter were that unless you had a Plantronics CS-50 headset which has a ringer built into the external charger, you couldn't hear the phone ringing unless you were wearing the headset or noticed the softphone pop onto the screen.

It may be small but the first change is the logo on the top right hand corner. At least it'll be easier to quickly identify the latest version without having to go the  'About the S8602' screen. The second main change can be found in the advanced audio settings which now have three dropdown boxes. It's here that you set up the softphone to use a headset but to send the ringing to the pc speakers.

I've had a look around the other setup screens (which to be honest are minimal) and I cannot find any other visible changes for the user so in  summary the user changes can be categorised as follows:

Softphone now works on Vista

Ringing can now be set to go to PC speakers rather than headset
 

Simple.

Click on the '?' button on the phone, select 'Audio and Other Settings' then select your headphone for the first two drop-downs and your PC audio source for the third drop-down.
 

Yes, this flummoxed me a bit.

When you plug your USB headset in your computer guesses that you don't want to disturb people around you and kindly diverts the speaker source to your headset. Simply go to 'Sounds' on your control panel and set the sound playback to come from your speakers.
 

I still can't get audio to the headset
The only other one I have found so far is due to Windows XP and Vista's ability to second guess you when plugging in USB devices, I sometimes have to play around a bit with the audio settings on the S8602 to get audio to the headphones. Simply apply the speaker setting then change back to headset setting and it should work itself out.