Home > Consumer Reviews > VIAVOICE FOR WINDOWS STANDARD

After installing Via Voice 10 (Standard Edition), I discovered that it wouldn't launch. I kept getting an error message stating that the TCP/IP protocol was unavailable. I sent an email to IBM's tech support and received a prompt, detailed reply. It turns out that ViaVoice 10 (in all editions) is incompatible with most firewalls, including ZoneAlarm and Ontrack System Suite.

The ZoneAlarm fix is a fairly complicated workaround. For Ontrack, there is no fix except to completely uninstall System Suite (disabling it won't help). Well, I like Ontrack System Suite and use it a lot, so I wasn't going to give it up. Instead, I returned ViaVoice 10.

By the way, ViaVoice 10 also caused Microsoft Word 97 to freeze whenever I tried to open it. I'm not sure why.

Bottom line: there are some serious compability problems here. I'm told that earlier versions of ViaVoice (version 9 and below) did not use the TCP/IP protocol and so should not interfere with your firewall/antivirus program. This seems to be a case of "improving" the product so much that it no longer works!

Picked this up at [a local store], and to my horror, it does not support win 2k or XP pro. It DOES say this on the side of the box, so it's not a total rip off, but still - they say 'for windows' everywhere and only in the small type do they point this out. They DO support XP home; just not XP pro, or win 2k pro.

I don't know how to get around this; the more advanced versions of the software support the 'pro' editions!