As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Messenger is meant as a replacement for Microsoft's previous chat/voice/video conferencing program called NetMeeting. If you or your organization prefers to use NetMeeting, you'll be happy to know that even though it doesn't appear on the Start menu, it's still present on your Windows XP computer. (The Whiteboard and Application Sharing features in Messenger use parts of NetMeeting, in fact.) If you want to continue to use NetMeeting, just follow these steps to create a shortcut for it:
When you start NetMeeting for the first time, it will walk you through its setup wizard. You'll need to enter personal information (only as much as you want to), and run the Audio/Video Tuneup Wizard. When this is done, you're ready to go on the air. One significant difference between this version of NetMeeting and versions you may have used in the past is that the Directory system is gone. You no longer can log on to the ILS (Internet Locator Service) or a corporate directory server to search for chat buddies. NetMeeting now uses the same contact list that Windows Messenger uses. So, you have only two ways to choose a partner for chatting and conferencing: You can select from your list of MS Messenger contacts, or you can directly enter the IP address of someone else running NetMeeting. Of course, this makes NetMeeting more difficult to use, and that's probably intentional ("You will use Passport. Resistance is futile"). Also, if you use a shared Internet connection, you need to know that Netmeeting is not "firewall aware"; that is, it doesn't know how to use UPnP to open ports in your firewall or NAT router to permit incoming connections. Visit msdn.microsoft.com and search the Knowledge Base for article 878451 for more information. |