Windows Meeting Space

Windows Meeting Space A component of Microsoft Windows

Windows Meeting Space (codenamed Windows Collaboration) is the name of a peer-to-peer collaboration program in Windows Vista that supports 2–10 users. Meeting Space does not exist in any version of Windows 7. It is a replacement for the older Windows NetMeeting application;^[1] however, features like microphone support and the ability to set up audio or video conferences are now removed.

Windows Meeting Space supports ad hoc meetings, application sharing, file transfer, and simple messaging within a network and works primarily inside the firewall, and requires IT involvement (on both sides) to bridge firewalls. For collaboration over the Internet, Microsoft has released Microsoft SharedView, which can work through firewalls using HTTP if necessary.

Windows Meeting Space has the ability to automatically set up an ad hoc wireless network if it can't find an existing network, which enables use in a conference room, a hotspot, or a place where no network exists. People can join a session that someone else sets up, or they can start a session and invite other people to join. It is also notable because it is one of the first applications for the peer to peer framework and hence requires IPv6. Windows Meeting Space uses Windows Vista's support for Teredo tunneling to allow IPv6 connections over the Internet.^[2]

Features

Windows Meeting Space allows sharing of the desktop with other coworkers, distribution and collaborative editing of documents, and passing notes to other participants. The session management features include options for starting a new session, joining an existing session, inviting someone to join a session and accepting an invitation to join an ongoing collaboration session.

On starting a session, a workspace, which contains a presentation area, is displayed. A list of notes are also shown. A list of users in the local subnet, with whom a collaboration session can be started, are automatically detected by using the People Near Me functionality, based on WS-Discovery in the peer-to-peer networking implementation in Windows Vista. Users outside the local subnet must be sent an e-mail or file invitation to participate. Applications can be shared in the session, which will be local to that session only. When an application is shared, Windows Meeting Space switches into presentation mode so that participants can see what the presenter is working on and collaboratively edit or review the shared application instance.

Higher versions than Windows Starter and Home Basic can take advantage of hosting capabilities, Starter and Home Basic editions are limited to "join" mode only. Desktop sharing is no longer available for server administrators, because on Windows Server 2008, there is neither Netmeeting nor Windows Meeting Space.

See also

• Windows Live Messenger
• Microsoft SharedView
• Groove Virtual Office

References

1. ^ Migrating from NetMeeting
2. ^ Technet: Windows Vista Windows Meeting Space Step by Step Guide