netmeeting and messenger integration broke, now what? alternitives?

[Skywanderer]

Hey all,
So heres the deal. I'm setting up a video conferencing setup. We are planning on useing netmeeting because, its free, and has the options we need like application sharing. The only problem is the connecting part. There was a intigration with messenger, where your buddy list showed up as a directory, and that was perfect, but microsoft broke it, and theres no word on when it will work again. What other options are there? I can't simply dial to a ip, as some are private. I tried the address book option, but that didn't work. Does anyone know an easy way to connect to another user, keeping in mind that all users are pre-known? Or, any other programs, preferebly inexpensive that do what I need?

 

[Skywanderer]

bump

 

[Skywanderer]

anyone?

 

[Slugbait]

Right-click the buddy in the Messenger UI, then click Start NetMeeting

 

[Skywanderer]

Unfortently, that option has disapeared from the messenger UI. I assume it happened in a upgrade.

 

[Slugbait]

Ahhh...you're not using MSN Messenger, you obviously have XP. Windows Messenger doesn't have an entry point for NetMeeting.

As far as NetMeeting goes, your only option is to call PSS and complain that the Windows team went and made life more difficult for downlevel NetMeeting users, and completely screwed XP NetMeeting users. Sorry.

Otherwise, you can use videoconferencing and app sharing that is built into Windows Messenger. App sharing usability might be a bit more cumbersome, and you can't resize the video like you can with NetMeeting, but at least you have an easy-connect.

Caveat: If you're not using XP, then you've done something wrong, such as uninstalled NetMeeting, using an older version of NetMeeting, installing NetMeeting to a different partition, etc. You cannot upgrade or uninstall NetMeeting on W2K or XP, but if you're using Win9x and you don't have build 3396, get the L&G here

 

[Skywanderer]

wait, so because I have XP, the "best" microsoft has to offer, I have less functionality then if I had 9x? Now, that definetly makes sense. Plus, the option to start netmeeting use to be there, then it disappeared. Lots of sense/

 

[Slugbait]

OK, here's the deal...

Part 1:
Windows Messenger has its own videoconferencing and app sharing capabilities. So the decision was made to pull out NetMeeting from the session invite capabilities in XP. It *used* to be there for you only because you were using an older OS, which had MSN Messenger installed (not Windows Messenger). The ability to start a NetMeeting conference from MSN Messenger is still there on older operating systems.

Part 2:
Back in February, BillG sent out a company-wide email called Trustworthy Computing. Every team had to comply, and comply immediately. Messenger soon released build 76, which had numerous security fixes. This caused a script error when trying to view your buddy list thru NetMeeting's MID. This script error was later fixed on Messenger's side (build 79) and you could view your contacts in MID...unfortunately, there needed to be another change made on the server side of MID in order for an invite made via MID to work.

The Windows team owns the MID server. They were informed what it would take to fix their end of the problem. They decided instead not to fix it, and just throw up a dialog (and they inadvertently introduced several bugs with the dialog...they didn't think about what they were doing before they did it). As a result, NetMeeting users running XP have to do today what they had to do back in 1996: dial the IP address, or logon to an ILS server.

Since it heavily impacts all downlevel operating systems and competely cripples XP NetMeeting users, I'm sure that if PSS gets enough complaints about the MID server being screwed the Windows team can be "persuaded" to fix it.

 

[Skywanderer]

Thank you for your assistance and explination. I am presently writing to the windows team from the contact portion of microsoft.com. Hopefully the problem will be fixed eventually.