Calling yourself from one PC using Virtual PC for Windows 7

A problem I've found it trying to call myself from one phone to another and only having one PC.
VM's have worked in the past for the Office Communicator client, but not for using VOICE.

With Windows 7 - I finally had to give up on Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2.   There are some workarounds to get it to to work, but there are even more issues afterwards.   

The workaround for this turns out to be Virtual PC for Windows 7, if you can meet the hefty requirements. 

From : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/support/requirements.aspx

•  Hardware Virtualization Technology enabled
• 1 GHz 32-bit / 64-bit processor required
• Memory (RAM)  -  2GB memory or higher recommended
• Recommended 15 GB hard disk space per virtual Windows environment
• Supported host operating system:

 VT was not required for Virtual PC 2007, but if you have it you also get the one more thing:  USB support.   (Two more things if you were using Virtual Server 2005 - USB and Sound)

 

With this option, it is possible to plug in an 8501 soft-phone and assign it to your Virtual PC.  Then you can simply assign it to the virtual machine.

 

 

Go through Tools / Set up Audio and Video in Office Communicator and you can now call yourself using a single PC using Virtual PC.

 

This is also useful for when you have your ip8540 / cx700 attached to your PC because it allows you to easily test a soft-phone without having to unplug the other.