Install Cisco IP Communicator on Win7 in VMware

Cisco IP Communicator (CIPC) requires a sound card be installed on a PC in order to install or open. Under normal circumstances, this completely makes sense. However, in other circumstances (demos/labs), PCs are actually virtual machines … and do not have sound cards. In these situations, the engineers/trainers/etc are more concerned with dialing than actually hearing audio.

In order to use CIPC in a virtual machine, install Virtual Audio Streaming – a virtual sound card tool from ShiningMorning.com prior to installing CIPC. This software will install virtual audio drivers on your VM which allow CIPC to install and have dialing capabilities. Unfortunately, CIPC will still only allow one instance to run at a time…unlike IP Blue. I have tested this with VMWare ESXi but it may also work with other VMWare products.