Microsoft® Personal Fax for Windows® Technology Preview
Overview
Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows is a new component under development for Windows
NT® Workstation 4.0 that provides users with the ability to send and receive faxes directly from their desktop.
This Technology Preview has been made available for Windows NT Workstation 4.0 customers to evaluate and
test as a solution for their desktop faxing requirements.
Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows provides a low-end, standalone desktop fax solution for Windows NT
Workstation 4.0. It supports one local fax device per workstation that can be used for either inbound or
outbound faxing (or both).
Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows has been designed as an integral part of the Windows NT
Workstation 4.0 operating system. It uses many of the existing features of Windows NT Workstation 4.0. It is
implemented as a Windows NT service, it uses Windows Telephony API (TAPI) and it will
use many modems that are supported by Windows NT Workstation 4.0 today. It also uses other operating
system features such as the event log to record any fax events, security to control access to the fax device, and
the Windows NT Imaging software to view incoming faxes. Additionally, if it is installed on a Windows NT
Workstation that uses the Microsoft Windows Messaging system (for example, Microsoft Exchange
or Microsoft Outlook™) it leverages Windows Messaging features such as
rich-text message creation, personal address book, and delivery of the fax into your inbox.
Sending Faxes From Your Desktop. With Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows you can send faxes using
three methods:
- You can fax the document you're currently working on directly from any application by simply
selecting your fax printer as your target printer when you "Print" the document. The Fax Send Wizard
opens and guides you through each step and then faxes your document.
- You can send a fax from within Microsoft Exchange by selecting a recipient whose address is
defined as a fax address within your personal address book. The email that you type becomes your fax.
You can simultaneously send a message to both fax and email recipients. A copy of each sent fax is
stored in the Sent folder just like email messages.
- You can select the Fax Send Utility (Start/Programs/Fax) and create your fax on-the-fly.
In addition, Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows provides several standard cover pages and an easy to
use cover page editor that allows you to design your own customized cover pages to suit your business needs.
Receiving Faxes. With Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows you can receive faxes using three methods:
- You can automatically route all incoming faxes to a local folder on your computer or on another
networked computer.
- You can automatically print each fax upon arrival to your printer or to another printer on a
networked computer.
- You can automatically receive faxes as mail messages in your Exchange Inbox.
Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows stores all outgoing and incoming faxes in .TIF formatted files. These
can then be viewed and edited with the Windows NT Image utility.
Easy to Use Fax Utilities. As with most Windows programs, all capabilities provided by the installed fax
product, including help, are available from the Start button under Programs/Fax. These include:
- Cover Page Editor
- Fax Document Viewer
- Fax Send Utility
- Configuration (also available as a Control Panel Applet)
- Complete Online help and Read-me information
Configuration of Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows. The configuration applet allows you to modify the
Personal Fax options such as:
- Your name, fax number, and other personal information you want to include on the cover pages of
outgoing faxes.
- Paper size, image quality, and page orientation.
- How many times you'd like the modem to redial after an unsuccessful call attempt and the interval
between redials.
- How you want to handle incoming faxes.
- Whether to send faxes immediately or to wait until phone rates are lower.
- Which cover page to use. You can also open the cover-page editor from the Fax Configuration
manager.
- The logging priority level for successful and unsuccessful fax events. You can view fax events in
the Event Viewer, one of the Administrator tools available under Start/Programs/Administrator Tools.
Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows utilizes the operating services of Windows Telephony API
(TAPI) for its communication with modems. Many of the modems that are available on the existing
Windows NT Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) will work with Microsoft Personal Fax for
Windows. For a list of the modems that we have tested so far, please click here.
The Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows Technology Preview downloads as a self-extracting archive.
Simply run the extracting file and follow the setup wizard through the installation.
Reporting Problems
The Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows Technology Preview has not been fully tested and should not be
deployed in production environments. Official Microsoft technical support is currently unavailable for the
Microsoft Personal Fax for Windows Technology Preview on Windows NT Workstation 4.0. However, we
encourage you to send your feedback to us.
If you wish to report a problem or send feedback, please completely fill out a report using the FAXPROB.TXT
file which is located in the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder of your Windows NT Workstation 4.0 installation.
This form is found under "Start/Program/Fax/Problem Reporting Form". When filling out your report, please
place the text "Fax:" at the beginning of the title. This will allow us to track the report properly.
For Example: "Fax: Unable to fax with fax word document"
Send the completed report via Internet mail to: ntbug@microsoft.com
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