Many modems are set only to recognize the sound of the telephone dial tone found in the US and Canada. And by default, they wait to hear that tone before dialing. This means that unless you alter your connection settings, you can have trouble getting your modem to dial when you’re outside of North America.

To do this, you simply have to instruct your modem to dial without waiting to hear the dial tone. This is done by inserting the characters X1 into your modem configuration string. In Windows 95, there are several ways to do this.

Configuring Windows

When you create a new connection in Windows 95, you double-click the Dial-Up Networking icon, found normally in either the Accessories or Control Panel windows. Next, double-click the Make a New Connection icon. You’ll see the name of your modem indicated, with a button labeled Configure… just below. Click on this, then click on the Connection tab that you’ll see at the top of the next window.

Here you’ll see a section called Call Preferences. Take the check out of the box beside the text "Wait for dial tone before dialing" by clicking on it. This does the trick. Alternatively, you can click on the button labeled Advanced… that you’ll find on the Connection tab. In the new window that comes up, type the characters X1 in the section labeled Extra Settings.

Modifying existing settings

If you have a connection that is already configured in Windows, you can modify it by clicking on its icon once with the right-hand mouse button. After selecting Properties, you should be able to follow the instructions given above.