MagicJack/Support Resources/How-To/Completely Remove MJ

'''For WinXP: ''' (this is from a tech chat session transcript)

Ivan: Please unplug your magicJack. Now go to [Start] in Windows and click on [Run...]. In there write "regedit" and press enter.

Ivan: Now click on + sign next to HKEY_LOCAL MACHINE.

Ivan: Click on + sign next to SYSTEM

Ivan: Click on + sign next to CurrentControlSet

Ivan: Click on + sign next to Enum

Ivan: Now find folder called USB. Right click on that and click on "Permissions". In permissions click on the check mark called "Allow" to the right of "Full Control".

Ivan: Click Ok. Ivan: Now click on + sign next to USB and then find the two folders called "Vid1307", right click on one at a time and select delete.

Ivan: Now click on - Sign next to USB.

Ivan: Right click on Folder called USBSTOR and allow permissions.

Ivan: Now click on + sign next to USBSTOR.

Ivan: Find the folders called "CdRom&Ven_YMAX&Prod_MagicJack&Rev"

Ivan: and "Disk&Ven_YMAX&Prod_MagicJack&Rev"

Ivan: Right click on those one at a time and delete them.

Ivan: Now exit Regedit and then plug your magicJack in

For Vista: (from a magicJack unofficial support forum entry) http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/post35183.html#35183

After nearly a year of successfully using my MJ on my Vista Business laptop, I suddenly started getting the "Warning: You must plug MagicJack into USB" error. After spending nearly 2 hours on chat with the MJ "techs," it became clear that they didn't have a clue as to the cause of the problem, though a quick Google search reveals that (1) it's endemic, and (2) it started around January or February. After tech support literally blew me off ("Okay, I've adjusted your settings here. Reboot and it will work.", "How can anything you do on your end affect this problem? Are you blowing me off?", "Oh, no, I assure you it will work." It didn't work.), I spent another 6 hours on my own searching this site and the rest of the internet. I've been able to fix the problem but it took a combination of actions to do it -- no single fix took care of the problem -- so I thought I'd share them here.

First, a quick kluge to get around the problem:

After the "Warning" message opens up and the MJ opens a browser to the MJ site, open Computer, right click on the icon that says MagicJack or Phone, but not the one that says CD MagicJack and select "Start MagicJack." The MJ will start right up and work fine. This is not a fix, however, as you will have to repeat the process each time you plug in the MJ.

Now, the fix:

0. THIS IS THE PROCEDURE FOR VISTA, ONLY. If you're running XP, you'll have to try something else. Because this procedure involves registry edits, I strongly recommend that, before beginning, you set a restore point and back up the registry.

Delete MagicJack from the computer

1. Manually delete the MagicJack folder under Program Files.

2. Manually delete the MJUSB folder, which is found here:

c:\users\[username]\appdata\roaming\mjusb

Reset the Registry permission

3. Download subinacl.exe from Microsoft here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e8ba3e56-d8fe-4a91-93cf-ed6985e3927b&displaylang=en

Run the downloaded executable and let it install.

4. Open a text editor (Microsoft Notepad works fine) and enter the following (you can cut and past from this post):

cd /d "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools"

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f

subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f

subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f

secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose

You can also find the text here:

http://blog.tiensivu.com/aaron/archives/1412-Having-trouble-installing-the-Vista-SP1-update-Reset-your-registry-permissions!.html

Save the text file to the root directory (C:\) as RESET.CMD

Open Explorer and double click on RESET.CMD

This will reset all registry permissions and is a necessary step. This takes a long time -- go have dinner, take in a movie, or go out for a walk. . . or. . . go to step 4. You can do it while reset.cmd is running, but a lot of computer resources are used, so you might want to wait.

Format the MagicJack

4. Open Computer. Right click on MagicJack or Phone. Select Format. A window will open for formatting. Use the defaults and format the MJ.

Scrub out MagicJack keys from the Registry

5. In the Start Menu, click "Run" and type Regedit in the box. Hit return. This opens the Registry Editor.

6. Press CTL-F. This opens the search box. Type: magicjack and press Enter.

The software will find the first key containing magicjack. Delete it by right-clicking on the key in the left-hand window and selecting delete. The software will ask you to confirm the deletion. Select Yes.

7. Press F3 -- this will cause the software to search for the next instance of "magicjack." Delete the key as described above. Keep pressing F3 and deleting found keys until you've worked your way through the registry. Note: there are LOTS of keys that must be deleted. Don't be surprised if there are 30, 40 or even 50 keys that must be deleted.

8. Use the slider to reposition the left-hand window on the very top entry and click it. Now open the following section:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBSTOR\

Find every instance of Disk&Ven_YMAXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (the section identified by "xxxxxxxx" will vary from installation to installation).

Delete them. If the Registry won't allow you to delete them, you may need to change Ownership by right clicking on the key, selecting Permissions, Advanced and checking "Full Control." You can find instructions on Google for doing this if you're having trouble.

9. Exit the Registry Editor and reboot.

Re-install the MagicJack

10. After your computer reboots, plug in the MagicJack. Vista will treat it as a new device and install it automatically.

11. After it has installed it will re-start. Either it will work or you'll get the "Warning: You must plug MagicJack into USB" error again. If you get the error, manually start the MagicJack by following the kluge procedure at the beginning of this post.

12. Once the MagicJack is up and running, click on Menu, Advanced, Run MagicFix. This will take you to the MJ website where you can click on Upgrade. Let the upgrade run -- you'll get the "Lucky you -- you're getting an upgrade" splash screen.

13. Once it has finished, leaving the MagicJack in place, reboot the computer.

That's it. The MagicJack should work normally and you shouldn't see the Warning: You must plug MagicJack into USB error again. . . at least until the next upgrade of MagicJack.

P.S.: getting control of file system and registry objects
Added comment by Wikipedia registered user pol098, reachable there

Re the paragraph ''Delete them. If the Registry won't allow you to delete them, you may need to change Ownership by right clicking on the key, selecting Permissions, Advanced and checking "Full Control"''. I don't want to edit the paragraph as my experience is not with MagicJack, but (particularly in Windows 10) I've found that to solve some permissions problems with files/directories and with registry keys it is necessary both (logged in as an administrator user) to Take Ownership and to take Full Control; these are separate actions. I find that, as an administrator user, I have to do both; even taking ownership by my account, and then giving Full Control to Administrators doesn't work, it has to be a named administrator user account. If you can make things work without all this, so much the better; but this procedure may work where omitting some steps doesn't.

In some particularly recalcitrant cases I've found an elevated command prompt is the only thing that works (Win10: right-click start button, Command prompt Admin). I had a directory structure I couldn't delete with the above ownership/control method; I ultimately opened an elevated prompt and used commands MS-DOSsers will know: chdir or cd; rmdir or rd; dir; del. After changing ownership/permission in Explorer (I did this separately for the top level directory, its subdirectory, and the single file in the subdirectory) but still unable to delete, I had to navigate down two levels, delete the file, up one level, remove the subdirectory, up another level, finally delete the top directory. Perhaps I'd have had less work with inherited permissions; perhaps I could have used DELTREE or something similar from the top level, but it worked and I didn't investigate further. If you have a lot of deletions to make, it's been suggested that you create a new administrator user, grant Full Control of the entire registry tree (I think ownership would be dangerous), make the deletions, then remove the temporary user.

HTH