A service provider sends a PHONE_REMOVE message to TAPI to disable an existing phone device. This can occur when the removal of the device from the system (in a permanent way) is detected by Plug and Play or through a control panel or other user interface. It should not be used when a device is temporarily disconnected, such as if the device is a PCMCIA card that is extracted (use PHONESTATE_DISCONNECTED in this situation).

When the message is received, TAPI closes the phone device (if it is not already closed) by calling TSPI_phoneClose, and sends PHONE_CLOSE to all applications that have the phone open. After processing the message, TAPI does not call the service provider referencing the removed device's dwDeviceID. TAPI returns PHONEERR_NODEVICE to any application that attempts to reference the removed dwDeviceID.

After TSPI_providerShutdownhas been called, the service provider can renumber its devices to remove any numbering gaps left by the device removal, so that when TSPI_providerEnumDevicesis subsequently called, installed devices are contiguously numbered. The service provider should not reuse the dwPermanentPhoneIDthat had been assigned to the device, for as long as possible.

The PHONE_REMOVE mechanism is to be used only if devices are removed while the service provider is active (for example, between TSPI_providerInitand TSPI_providerShutdown).

This message is sent to the PHONEEVENTcallback entry point in TAPI. The service provider receives a pointer to this callback in the TSPI_providerEnumDevicesfunction and in each TSPI_phoneOpenfunction; the PHONE_REMOVE message can be sent to the PHONEEVENTcallback function given to any open phone or at startup.

Older service providers are not expected to send this message. If they do, the message is treated in the same manner as described above for new service providers.