Microsoft Phone Link is preinstalled on Windows 11 computers but is
available for Windows 10 and 11 users in the Microsoft Store. It can be
used with Android and with iPhone devices. By combining a linked phone
with a Bluetooth connection, you can manually type a phone number and have it
placed with your phone or manually type a phone number to text message.
Skipping the manual labor part of typing in phone numbers is where our Chaos programs are useful.
Chaos Intellect, Time & Chaos and Chaos Free are all contact manager programs with twenty phone number fields that can be used for voice numbers and other means of contact like email addresses, web urls, and social media addresses.
When one of our Chaos contact manager programs is combined with Microsoft Phone Link connected to a smart phone, you can click on voice numbers to use your connected phone to make calls or click TextMsg: to send text messages with your connected phone.
If you have Microsoft Phone Link working with your phone and placing phone calls successfully, Microsoft Phone Link can also handle tel: prefixed phone number for requests started by other programs like Chaos Intellect, Time & Chaos and Chaos Free.
First, here is the configuration you should setup in the Chaos program:
With these settings, when you are viewing the card panel to the right of the contacts list with the information from the selected contact and click any voice link for Business or Home or Cellular, the Chaos program will pass the number to Windows which will then pass it to Phone Link for you to then dial without needing to copy and paste or type it in manually.
Microsoft Phone Link can also send text messages through your connected phone and its default messaging program
The configuration for the Chaos program? Contacts need to have a Phone Label of "TextMsg:". The Phone Number field needs the Cellular/Mobile number you wish to messsage.
This does mean that you would likely have the contact's cell phone number in two places, Cellular for the voice call link and TextMsg: for the messaging link
Behind the scenes in Windows, Microsoft Phone Link needs to be the default program for two protocols so that any requests from other programs in Windows (like our Chaos programs) get sent by Windows to Phone Link.
To make sure Microsoft Phone Link IS setup in Windows to be the defaults for the needed protocols, open the Windows Settings app, then go to Apps, Default Apps.
In the section for "Set defaults for applications" you can scroll down to find Phone Link or you can use the Search apps field to hunt for it that way.
The goal is that you want Phone Link to be the default for both SMS and for TEL.
Once Microsoft Phone Link is the default for SMS, any Text Message request from Windows programs including your Choas program will be routed to Phone Link then to your connected smart phone.
Once Microsoft Phone Link is the default for TEL, any Voice call requests from Windows programs including your Chaos program will be routed to Phone Link then to your connected smart phone.
This help article applies to Intellect 10.6 or newer, Time & Chaos 10.6 or newer, and Chaos Free 10.6 or newer