INSTALLING/RUNNING MJ AS A SERVICE ON XP pro [2009-11-24]

[mennospeak]

Background:
I spent a day researching and experimenting with MJ to run it as a system process. The MJ problem which drove me to this solution was garbled audio which often occurs somewhere between 18-24 hours of operation. Clear audio is restored by killing/restarting the magicjack.exe process or rebooting the computer. The computer that hosts MJ is remote from my office. I remotely login to this computer to perform other work. Using my remote login to kill/restart process magicJack.exe would result in MJ not being able to detect my telephone. So to clear my garbled audio problem, I would have to get up and walk over to the remote computer, reboot the computer, login locally to restart MJ. Since I can reboot my computer from this remote login. I decided to see if I could run MJ as a service process; hence, allowing me to remotely reboot the computer and come back up with MJ providing dialtone.
After conducting some web research and experimentation, I've settled on the following installation steps which allow MJ to run as a system process on my XP Pro system.

Step by Step Procedure

1) Install MJ.

2) Once MJ is working properly, open Task Manager, and click on the Processes Tab. End the magicJack.exe process.

3) Run MSConfig, go to the Startup tab, uncheck cdloader2.exe, and then click OK.

4) Open My Computer and go to
C:\Documents and Settings\Your Username\Application Data
and move the mjusbsp folder to:
C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application Data
This is a hidden directory that can be accessed by a copy/paste of C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application Data into the Address window of My Computer.
5) Download from Microsoft (if you don’t have it) the Windows Resource Kit - rktools.exe. The native installation places these tools in directory:
C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\

6) Using the default path where the resource kit is installed, run cmd and enter (copy/paste):
"C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\instsrv.exe" "MagicJack" "C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\srvany.exe"
This command installs MJ as system process “MagicJack” and adjusts the registry according.

7) Run regedit and go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current Control Set\Services\MagicJack
Right click the MagicJack key, choose New>Key, and name it Parameters.
Now in the Parameters key, right click, choose New>String Value, and name it Application.
Double click the Application value and set it to
"C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application Data\mjusbsp\magicJackLoader.exe”

8) Exit regedit, restart your computer, open the Task Manager, and watch XP Pro activate MJ as a system service. Once the MJ process is running, you should get a dial tone.

[revjimjones]

Excellent write-up, thanks! Got it working in a few minutes except on #7, the application value wouldn't work as written - I had to remove the quotes. I'm not all that swift when it comes to the registry, I just tried it and it worked without quotes.