Dialing Rules May Not Be Applied to Tools Such as Fax (318575)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
This article was previously published under Q318575
For a Microsoft Windows 2000 version of this article, see 247192.

SYMPTOMS

Your dialing rules may not be applied to tools that are included with Windows XP, such as the Microsoft Fax tool.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur if you do not use canonical form (the full standard form) for the telephone numbers. If you do not use canonical form, the dialing rules are not used in Windows XP tools such as Fax.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, type the telephone numbers in the following format:

+Country/RegionCode (AreaCode) SubscriberNumber

For example, this is the format for a subscriber in the United States of America in canonical format:

+1 (nnn) nnn-nnnn

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

To properly apply the dialing rules, some Windows XP tools require both of the following items:
  • Information about where the call is being dialed from (from the dialing rules).
  • Information about where the call is being dialed to (from the full canonical number).
This includes the country/region code and area code in both cases.

If you type only a string of digits, Windows cannot reliably parse the information to determine which portion of the number is the country/region code, area code, and local number.

Note that programs that store numbers, such as Microsoft Outlook, try to intelligently convert random strings of digits into canonical numbers before storing them in the Contacts folder.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:8/6/2002
Keywords:kbenv kbprb KB318575
©2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.