›› Telephony

The Telephony service allows programs access to various telephony hardware and IP-based voice connections through TAPI (Telephony Application Programming Interface). In the programming world, Application Programming Interfaces (API) allow programmers to write programs that interface with devices on the computer, in this case these devices happen to be telephony in nature. Therefore, programmers are able to write software that uses the TAPI to take advantage of telephony services within their programs. TAPI is able to connect programs to a variety of supported hardware like: sound and video cards, modems, ATM networks, and cameras.

As an example of how this service works, let's say that you are a programmer. You decide to write a program that needs to use the modem to connect to the Internet. Without the TAPI, you would need to write all of the code yourself to allow your program to use the modem to connect to the Internet. Instead, you decide to tell your program to use TAPI to do all of the work of connecting through the modem to the Internet. Now your program goes through TAPI everytime it needs to, for example, to initialize the modem or dial the number to connect to the Internet. TAPI is the proxy that provides a standard way for your program to be able to directly communicate with the modem.

TAPI is not only able to directly connect programs to the Internet, they can also connect them to local computers, phone lines, Local Area Networks (LANS), and Wide Area Networks (WANS). Programmers can use TAPI for many functions within their programs including: making and receiving calls, caller ID, call routing, voice mail, video conferencing, etc...

We are recommending that you keep the Telephony service set to Manual. Since programmers program the use of TAPI into their programs, you may never know if you have purchased a program that will use this service to connect to various telephony devices. If you have a stand-alone computer that is not used to connect to a network or the Internet or you will never use software that requires this service, it may be safe to disable this service. If you decide to stop or disable this service, programs that use TAPI will not function correctly. Be aware that you cannot stop this service if Remote Access Auto Connection Manager, Remote Access Connection Manager, and Fax Services are running.

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