Microsoft Office Communicator 2005

[NapalmDeath]

Microsoft Office Communicator 2005

Anyone been able to find a way to change the idle interval from 5min to 1 hour, or to even disable idle?

There are a couple values in the registry, but changing them has no effect.

Tks

 

[spyordie007]

It would have been better to put this in the application forums however:
Actions>Options>Rules>Status

There is a dropdown that lets you change the period you have to be idle before it sets you to away.

 

[NapalmDeath]

How do I turn idle off or set it for 9999 minutes?
Is it a registry hack?

 

[Smilin]

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator
DWORD IMIdleTimeout
Value is in minutes and defaults to 10.


Do not set above 12hrs. Unpredictable results.

Be aware that fooling with this can result in mpop sending an IM to a stale point of registration. In practice I don't usually have any problems but I typically stat at one point of presence. I think mine is set to an hour or something.

 

[Smilin]

note on the above...


The idle timeout I mentioned is the amount of time a multiparty conversation can be idle before the call-id is shut down.


If you are trying to change the amount of idle time before it sets your status to away then it's done via gui.

 

[NapalmDeath]

I'd like to change my away idle trigger to longer than 1 hour.
Or better yet turn it off.

I'm at a point now where I'd rather just not use it.
Having an entire company with IM access to me, and worst yet SALES, is just not good. They don't need instant access to interrupt my work. Emails are good, and even phone is better.

IM is reserved to people who I know won't abuse it, and who really need instant access.

 

[spyordie007]

So why not disallow them privilage to see your status?

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: NapalmDeath
I'd like to change my away idle trigger to longer than 1 hour.
Or better yet turn it off.

I'm at a point now where I'd rather just not use it.
Having an entire company with IM access to me, and worst yet SALES, is just not good. They don't need instant access to interrupt my work. Emails are good, and even phone is better.

IM is reserved to people who I know won't abuse it, and who really need instant access.

In MOC goto the actions menu then permissions tab. This tab has the most settings available to modify your watcher list (reverse buddy list) short of hitting the SQL DB on the LCS server.

More than anything you need to understand both sides of IM etiquette. If you don't want to talk to someone, then simply don't respond (the ESC key is great for this). There is far too much access to people using IM for it not to be acceptable to ignore someone if you are busy.

We use IM HEAVILY here.... having 3 IM windows open is the average for me. Sometimes if something is going down I'll get upwards of 9...all crammed onto my 3rd monitor off to the side. People know what's up and if I'm busy they get a "busy dude, get back with ya." or simply no response at all.

 

[Smilin]

haha I totally misread you.


I thought you were trying to duck too much IM traffic, not make yourself more available 😛

Here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Communicator

Make a dword called IdleThreshhold and set it to the number of minutes you desire.

Be sure you are in HKCU and not HKLM.

 

[NapalmDeath]

Smilin,
Thanks, I had found that registry key earlier, but changing the value doesn't seem to work.

So why not disallow them privilage to see your status?

Because all the micromanagers and sales abuse it, and explaining to them why they are denied access starts a fight.

I only use IM to other engineers for quick collaboration on work. Not as a tool to keep micromanagers constantly updated.

It will raise an interesting company debate when people start refusing to use it.
Most will claim lack of technical know how, but a few may actually refuse the digital leash.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: NapalmDeath
Smilin,
Thanks, I had found that registry key earlier, but changing the value doesn't seem to work.

Should work. Couple possible gotchas:
1. Be sure you're in hkey current user, not local machine.
2. After making the change, close communicator AND find communicator.exe in your process list and kill it.... sucker doesn't like to fully close properly. I bump into this all the time when setting the regkeys to flip on SIP logging.


The user community where I work have been using IM for longer than possibly any company out there. You'll find that once your users become accustomed to it they behave differently than when it is first introduced. For us it is like having the whole company in the next cube over where you can peek over and ask a quick question. Long conversations are rare, and using it as a leash for micromanagement is nonexistent.

It does take a little time though. Getting it rolled out far and wide helps.


Let me know if that regkey still refuses to work for you and I'll dig into it for ya. Seeing as I support that product letting your problem slide by would hurt my pride 😛
...no promises on timely responses though. Busy as sh1t these days 🙁