Roresishms

A Virtual World of Live Pictures.

You have just installed a new Windows 7 operating system on your computer. Windows 7 is indeed a great operating system and you are almost certainly enjoying many of its features. Sooner or later you decide to share a PowerPoint presentation with your colleague. you write “conference” in the Run menu to start good old NetMeeting. You hit Enter anticipating a new and improved interface and… nothing happens. Wait, is my Windows installation broken or did they rename the software again?

Where is NetMeeting?

Let’s be clear from the start: There is no NetMeeting in Windows 7. Microsoft removed it from its latest operating system. Because? They are pushing companies to implement full-featured unified communications solutions like Microsoft Lync. But what about those of us who aren’t ready or just don’t need the complexity of such a solution? All is not lost and there are some options available.

What are the alternatives?

Let’s take a quick look at some tools that can be considered as a NetMeeting replacement for Windows 7.

Official Microsoft Solutions

NetMeeting in XP mode – Basically, you run a Windows XP virtual machine inside your Windows 7 operating system.

Advantages:

  • Free (on Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate).
  • You get the full functionality of NetMeeting.

Cons:

  • Only available on Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate.
  • Heavy – Running a separate OS just for one app seems overkill to me.
  • Requires non-trivial installation and configuration; can be a problem for end users.

Microsoft Shared View – it cannot be considered a direct replacement for NetMeeting since it does not allow you to connect directly to another machine’s IP. That is, you are not using a peer-to-peer (P2P) connection.

Advantages:

  • The official Microsoft alternative to Windows 7.
  • Free.
  • Improved functionality.

Cons:

  • It works over the Internet and therefore requires an Internet connection.
  • Less secure: Your data leaves your private network.
  • Slow on the local network since it is no longer P2P.
  • Requires Windows Live ID creation.
  • Limited to 15 attendees.
  • Installation required.

third party solutions

Tools like WebEx, LogMeIn, etc. they are readily available from numerous vendors. Functionally, they are even further from NetMeeting than they are from Microsoft SharedView, and may be described by many users as “too far”. The only situation where I would recommend using such a tool for NetMeeting replacement is when your organization has already implemented it and is paying for it.

Advantages:

  • Rich functionality.
  • Your organization may already have them in place.

Cons:

  • Expensive.
  • Most of them are web based.
  • Usually a complex user interface, functionally overloaded.
  • Internet connection and ID creation required.
  • It is not P2P and is usually slow.

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