Anyone using Netmeeting on a LAN?

[crisc]

I'm testing Netmeeting on our corporate LAN, and want to try setting up an internal ILS to act as a directory server. Are any of you running something similar, and care to shed some light on the subject?
Microsoft has backed off there support of this, preferring users to use MSN Messenger as a directory, although they offer ILS 2.0 for download. I thought I'd dedicate a 2K box running ILS on our LAN for this purpose, I've found conflicting info saying that ILS only runs on NT--not 9x or 2k platforms, and others saying 2K has ILS built into it.

Anyone have any experience with this scenario?

 

[MinnKota]

Did you end up figuring it out? I also would be interested in doing this.

 

[crisc]

No, I spent a few days toying with this before I gave up. I built an ILS server and followed all the guidelines for configuring the clients to connect to it, but they weren't able to see or connect to it. Most of the information I found pertained to connecting to an external ILS, and I was able to connect to these ok, but for security reasons this wasn't suitable.
Like I said, MS really intends their messenger app to handle these services. Too bad.

 

[ACraib]

I've had this working on a corporate lan / wan.

You can install ILS on a W2K server. You don't even need to download it. Lookin in Networking Services in Add New Components (in Add/Remove programs).

If I remember correctly all I did was install it and away you go. There is no config needed on the server side. Then on the Netmeeting side select director from the File menu and point it to your server.

I've even used it across a WAN link and it worked OK. Let me know if this doesn't help and I'll set it up again. (The server I had ILS running on was recently upgraded to a 2003 server and ILS doesn't run on it.)

Cheers

Andrew

 

[ACraib]

I should clarify one point ... I'm running a AD domain which I think made a difference.

 

[crisc]

Thanks ACraib, it was long enough ago that I forgot exactly why I gave up on this. I went through this process again.

We only wanted our ITS team to use Netmeeting, specifically its remote control feature, which works very well. We wanted an easier way of identifying all the clients on the network when we needed to control one. Netmeeting's remote desktop sharing feature can run "invisibly" on the client, but it only logs into a ILS/directory server when it is actually launched, and when Netmeeting is actually open and running, its a cumbersome process to use the remote control feature.

So, technically speaking, ILS worked, it just didn't work the way we wanted.

 

[ImpetusEra]

RealVNC is excellent for remote management. Connection can be made through netbios name or ip address.