Office Live Meeting Window Client

The Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In update makes available a 64-bit version which works with the 64-bit version [...]]]> The January 2010 updates are available the Office Live Meeting Console and the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In. Thanks to Aaron Tiensivu for catching this recent update to the Office Live Meeting Console and the Outlook Conferencing Add-In.

The Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In update makes available a 64-bit version which works with the 64-bit version of the Office 2010 Beta.

Office Live Meeting Console

• Fixes 4 known issues. More details can be found here:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976128/
• Download it:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101733831033.aspx
• Updates the console to .149 (from the last September 2009 release which was .143 – 8.0.6362.143).

Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In

• Fixes 5 known issues. More details can be found here:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976129/
• Download it:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA102368901033.aspx
• A 64-bit version is available for download to work with the 64-bit Office 2010 Beta. See “Information about the messages that you receive when you install the 32-bit version or you install the 64-bit version of the Live Meeting 2007 Conferencing Add-in for Outlook” for more information.

In case you missed it, these updates go hand-in-hand with the January 2010 Updates to Office Communicator 2007 R2 and OCS 2007 R2 Server.

You can view the script, download it, and read about the features here. It is 1500+ lines of [...]]]> After a lengthy work in progress, I am pleased to share a Microsoft Unified Communications Client Deployment script that I think will help some deployments rollout Office Communicator, Office Live Meeting, and the Office Live Meeting Outlook Add-In.

You can view the script, download it, and read about the features here. It is 1500+ lines of VBScript joy wrapped in a Windows Script File (wsf).

The script was born out of the need to deploy Office Communicator, Office Live Meeting, and the Office Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In with a customized configuration for a mid-size OCS deployment without a good central software distribution ability. Using Group Policy to rollout the clients also had issues.

The Deploying Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 document (download “OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Communicator.doc”) gives more details on the various options available for deploying Communicator. The Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit (book) also has some good information about deploying the UC clients and a basic script similar to this one. This script was a complete re-write of this one.

The script has many features, including the following:

1. Install, or upgrade, Microsoft Office Communicator, Live Meeting, or the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In for Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 clients.
2. Automatically populate the user SIP address to one of three formats: AD email address, the Username environment variable, or Nothing.
3. Supports for a Silent or Informational Mode. A Silent mode can be used to run under a GPO for example.
4. An option to copy the installation files locally (with or without a progress UI indicator), and install from the local source.
5. Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 can be detected and explicitly uninstalled before installing a newer version of Communicator (including any existing desktop shortcuts).
6. Configures customized user settings for Communicator and Live Meeting (via local registry entries).
7. Supports options to not install Live Meeting or the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In (for deployments that do not have Live Meeting).
8. Detects if Outlook is installed, and will not attempt to install the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In if Outlook is not installed.
9. Detects what version of Outlook is installed, and sets the current user Outlook integration settings accordingly.
10. Detects if Outlook is running, and prompts the user to close before installing the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In.
11. Generates four log files for troubleshooting.  One for the main script, and three separate log files for the Communicator, Live Meeting, and the Live Meeting Outlook Add-In installation.

See the Script Customizations for all the possible customizations. While it is highly configurable, treat the script as a starting resource – dig into it, understand it, and customize it for your environment if you want to use it.

The script has been tested and used on many different client operating systems (listed in point #1 above) and is being used in a 3000+ user rollout.

Enjoy!

I had always assumed the root cause was that the Live Meeting client was getting confused between on-premise and  hosted live meetings because I [...]]]> On a desktop I use regularly, I had a nagging Live Meeting issue when trying to attend a hosted Live Meeting. After clicking the “Join Meeting” link I received the following error:

I had always assumed the root cause was that the Live Meeting client was getting confused between on-premise and  hosted live meetings because I use the same client to attend both. BTW, I good tip - if the meeting URL starts with “meet:”  it is an on-premise OCS server hosting the meeting, and if it starts with a “https:” it is a hosted live meeting.

I dug into the issue, found the problem, fixed it, and wanted to share my experience for the benefit of others.

The fixed turned out to be an Internet Explorer setting (see KB article: You are prompted to open or to save a file that is named “Launch.rtc” when you try to join a meeting in Live Meeting 2007).  This article discusses many causes for this error, but after taking the first action (Disable the “Do Not Save Encrypted pages to disk” option in Internet Explorer”) everything worked like a charm.

Below is high level description of what happens when a hosted Live Meeting is launched from the web browser. When the user clicks on the “Join Meeting” link:

1. The meeting URL launches in the browser with the meeting details (e.g. https://www.livemeeting.com/<meeting url, id, and role>).
2. The web site redirects the client to a Microsoft RTC Connection File (i.e. “launch.rtc” file).  The RTC file contains the meeting information (role, meeting start time, end time, etc…)
3. The RTC file is (should be) associated with the program “Microsoft Office Live Meeting Router” application.
4. The “Microsoft Office Live Meeting Router” starts the local Live Meeting Console with the information about the meeting from the RTC file.

In general, users can minimize chances of other Live Meeting client issues by running the most up-to-date client.  The new OCS Update Resource Center makes this easier.

Users can also point their browsers at the Inside OCS Client Version Tool to easily see what versions of each client they are running.

Practically, [...]]]> After OCS is deployed and the Office Communicator and Office Live Meeting clients are being rolled out to your users, the next question you will likely have is how do I configure the Communicator client for users so that it is tailored for my environment?  This can be a challenging task in an diverse environment.

Practically, there are three administrative options at your disposal:

1) Group Policy: Communicator and Live Meeting client configuration settings are mostly set via client-side registry entries in three places:

• Local Machine Settings (i.e. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator)
• Current User Settings (i.e. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator)
• Current User Settings share with Live Meeting (i.e.  HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Shared\UcClient)

2) Set Registry Entries through a Deployment Script.  This is similar to the GPO option, except that one or more of the same settings used in the GPO can be set in a Windows script (usually the same script used to deploy Communicator).

3) In-Band Provisioning: Communicator receives settings from the OCS server (or pool) when the user signs in.

These three options are summarized below.

There is one other way Communicator settings can be set – users can simply change them through the Communicator Options Dialog box. Fortunately for administrators there is the notion of ‘Precedence’ which allows the three options above to take precedence over user settings directly in the client. Most Office Communicator settings configured with a GPO or in-band provisioning will be unavailable to the user in the UI (i.e. those options will be grayed-out).

Precedence

Here is the exact precedence taken by the various ways that Office Communicator client settings are set:

1. Local Machine Policy Registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator)
2. Local Current User Policy in the Registry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator)
3. OCS In-Band Provisioning
4. Office Communicator Options Dialog Box

Troubleshooting Note: with Communicator having different configuration sources, it helps to know exactly what settings are in-affect when trying to debug an issue with a particular user. A nifty feature was added to Office Communicator R2 that will show the current configuration of many important settings when it is running. See my previous blog post ‘Great New Office Communicator R2 Troubleshooting Feature’ for more information.

Office Communicator Group Policy

The various Communicator settings that can be set through a GPO can be found here:

• Communicator 2007 R2 Policies Documentation
• Communicator 2007 Policies Documentation

Both of these downloads are installer files which ‘install’ (extracts to a directory) an administrative template (.adm file) and a corresponding Excel spreadsheet documenting the settings and the possible values. I have found a few errors in the spreadsheet involving possible values for a couple settings. I will try to publish these at a later date.

The Communicator GPO can then be applied to User or Computer Configuration objects in an AD domain or OU.  The choice to tie the GPO to a user or computer has advantages and disadvantages. The user object is generally a good idea because the GPO will apply be applied on any machine the user login’s to. The downside is it will not get applied if the user is using a machine that is not part of the AD domain that it was applied to. The local machine policy will also work, but it will not apply the settings to any other machines (or devices) that the user uses.

For this reason, you might want to consider using a deployment script or in-band provisioning.

Set Registry Entries through a Deployment Script

This option uses a windows script (VBScript, Jscript, or any Windows Script File) to set Communicator registry entries with values that are tailored for the user and the environment. The script will typically exist on a common network share and users (or Administrators) will manually run the script, or it will be attached to a Windows user logon script.

One advantage of this approach is that the same script can double as a software deployment script if there are not good existing mechanisms to deploy the client software. The script will typically run the client installer (i.e. *.msi) files that exist on a common network share.

Another advantage of this method is flexibility and customization. For example the user’s SIP address can be configured by setting the registry value in “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Shared\UcClient\ServerSipUri”. Within the script you can do things like do any AD lookup to populate the users’ SIP address with same format as their email address in AD.

The “Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit” contains a sample installation script that can be customized to a particular environment. I hope to release an advanced Office Communicator, Office Live Meeting, and Outlook Conferencing Add-In deployment script shortly that I have been working on for some time which has many more features and offers a better experience for Vista and Windows 7.

In-Band Provisioning

There are a limited number of settings you can set through this mechanism.  Most settings are geared towards ensuring a consistent user experience regardless of the endpoint (or device) that a user signs in with.

Rather than repeat the settings here, this Microsoft TechNet article on ‘In-Band Provisioning over SIP’ does a great job detailing the settings, and where to find them in the OCS Management Console.

Arguably the three most significant, and often used, settings are the URLs for the Address Book, the A/V Edge Server (which tells the client what server to use as a Media Relay (aka “MRAS Server”), and the Global Meeting Policy.

Also note that the in-band provisioning settings can be set programmatically using three WMI classes: MSFT_SIPClientPortSettings, MSFT_SIPCommunicatorConfigSettings, the MSFT_SIPUCPhoneConfigSetting. My previous blog entry ‘OCS WMI Reference’ gives more information on using the WMI classes to administer OCS.

The Live Meeting Console:

This update addresses a problem [...]]]> New updates are available for the Office Live Meeting Console and the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In.  Both updates replace version 8.0.6362.140 (which was the July 2009 update) with 8.0.6362.143.

The Live Meeting Console:

• Download the Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 client
• Description of the Windows-based Live Meeting 2007 client update package: September 2009

This update addresses a problem I have encountered several times whereby the “Do not save encrypted pages to disk” setting in Internet Explorer can cause an error message when trying to join a meeting  via clicking the meeting URL (in Vista this could hinder the launching of the Live Meeting Console installation via the meeting URL).

The corresponding Office Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In:

• Download the Conferencing Add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook
• Description of the update for the Live Meeting Conferencing Add-in for Outlook: September 2009

Rather than have the user open each application and do a “Help | About” and tediously [...]]]> One of the first things that should be done when debugging any client side issues with Office Communicator, Office Live Meeting, or the Office Live Meeting Outlook Add-In is to know what versions of each client the user is running. 

Rather than have the user open each application and do a “Help | About” and tediously record the version information for each client , I’ve developed a small and simple free online tool that retrieves the version of all three clients and displays it in an HTML window that can be easily cut-and-pasted into an email.

Point your web browser to http://www.insideocs.com/Tools/ClientVersions.html and click the link to run it.  There is also a link on the right-hand side of www.insideocs.com (under Inside OCS Resources).

The tools also:

• Attempts to display the installation source of Office Communicator (i.e. OEM, Evaluation Version, Volume License, MSDN, or Academic).
• Contains links to download the latest Office Live Meeting Console and the Office Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In from Microsoft.
• Works for both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.

Here is a screenshot sample of what it produces: