Vista's Windows Meeting Space offers enhanced functionality for real-time collaboration

by Deb Shinder | Oct 16, 2006 7:00:00 AM

Tags: Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Operating systems, File Replication, Microsoft Windows Firewall, collaboration, Deb Shinder, Meeting Space, Windows Meeting Space, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Vista

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Takeaway: Windows Meeting Space, Vista's replacement for NetMeeting, is a peer-to-peer app that enables up to 10 users to conduct virtual meetings. Participants can share their desktops, documents, and applications, exchange notes, and give presentations by connecting to a network projector. See how to configure Meeting Space settings, set up and conduct meetings, and control the use of the tool on your networks.

This article is also available as a PDF download.

Windows Vista, more than any previous Microsoft operating system, incorporates collaboration tools to make it easier for computer users to work together in groups. This is an important element in today's business environment, where those who work on the same project are often spread out geographically. It can also be used for less formal collaborative efforts, in any situation where several people need a virtual "place" to come together for discussion or planning.

Previous Microsoft operating systems, from Windows 95 through XP, included Microsoft NetMeeting for conferencing and for file, application, and desktop sharing. Vista replaces NetMeeting with Windows Meeting Space. Meeting Space is a peer-to-peer application that provides collaboration sessions for up to 10 users. Meeting participants can share their desktops, documents, and applications, can exchange notes with other participants, and can even give a presentation by connecting to a network projector. Meeting organizers can also distribute handouts for their meetings.

Setting up Windows Meeting Space on a Vista computer

Windows Meeting Space (WMS) is installed by default on Vista computers. It's not available for XP or other operating systems. It works in conjunction with the People Near Me feature, which uses Web Services Dynamic Discovery (WS-Discovery) to locate other Vista users on the network. To set up Meeting Space, you must ensure that:

People Near Me is enabled
File Replication is enabled
Windows Firewall is configured to allow Meeting Space communications (for using Meeting Space outside the LAN)

The first time you attempt to use Meeting Space, the initial setup screen will ask whether you want to perform these actions. If you select Yes, the services will be enabled and Windows Firewall will be reconfigured for you.

Tip

Note that Vista's User Account Control will ask for permission to continue (if you're logged on as an administrator) or ask for you to enter administrative credentials (if you're logged on as a regular user) before you can proceed with the setup process.

As part of the setup process, you'll also be asked to set up People Near Me by entering a display name and selecting whether to allow invitations from anyone, trusted contacts only, or no one, as shown in Figure A. Trusted contacts are those who have provided you with digital certificates verifying their identities.

Figure A

The first step in using Meeting Space is setting up People Near Me.

How WMS works

After you go through the setup process, you'll find that on the Exceptions tab of the Windows Firewall Settings, three programs have been unblocked. These are:

Connect To A Network Projector
Windows Meeting Space
Windows Peer To Peer Collaboration Foundation

Connect To A Network Projector uses ports 5357, 5358, and 3702. Windows Meeting Space uses ports 5722 and 3587. Windows Peer To Peer Collaboration Foundation uses ports 3540, 1900, and 3702. Setting up Meeting Space also starts the following services: Peer Networking Grouping, Peer Name Resolution Protocol, and Peer Networking Identity Manager.

Windows Meeting Space uses IPv6, so you must have IPv6 installed and enabled on your network adapter to use WMS. IPv6 is installed and enabled by default in Windows Vista, but if it's been disabled, you can reenable it through the TCP/IP properties settings for the network connection.

You don't have to have an IPv6 network infrastructure set up to communicate only with non-remote users (those inside the People Near Me parameters). But for remote communications, you do need an infrastructure that provides globally routable IPv6 addresses. A global IPv6 address will be a 128-bit hexadecimal number that begins with 2001:, 2002:, 2003:, 2400:, 2404:, 2600:, 2604:, 2608:, 260C:, 2610:, 2800:, 2A00:, or 2601:. If your IPv6 address begins with fe80, it is a link-local address. You can find out your computer's IPv6 address by using the ipconfig command.

From now on, when you open the program, you'll see the Windows Meeting Space interface shown in Figure B.

Figure B

The Windows Meeting Space interface is simple and intuitive.

The interface is pretty straightforward and simple to use. You can select from three options:

Start A New Meeting
Join A Meeting Near Me
Open An Invitation File

If you choose to start a new meeting, you'll be asked to enter a name for the meeting (by default, this consists of your screen name and the time) and provide a password at least eight characters long, as shown in Figure C. Note that if your computer belongs to a Windows domain, any password requirements set in Group Policy will apply here, as well.

Figure C

To start a new meeting, you must provide a meeting name and password.

You can also configure visibility options, selecting either to allow or prevent the people near you to see the meeting. Once you make the meeting visible, it will show up in the list of meetings shown when a person opens Windows Meeting Space and selects Join A Meeting Near Me. If you make the meeting invisible, others will have to receive an invitation to join it. Any meeting participant can send an invitation.

If you're not connected to a network, you can choose to create a private ad hoc wireless network by which other meeting participants can connect and join the meeting. Obviously, this applies only if your computer is wireless-enabled. This feature makes it easy to conduct a meeting in a location where there is no existing network, such as in a conference room where participants are using wireless-equipped laptops.

It may take a few seconds for WMS to create your meeting. Then, you'll see the actual meeting space, as shown in Figure D.

Figure D

The meeting space allows you to invite people to the meeting, share items, or add handouts.

All the data that's sent and received in a WMS session is encrypted, so only authenticated participants will be able to see your communications and the items you share. However, it's important to note that it's possible for your computer to be infected by a virus or malware from a program or file that another participant shares with you in a meeting, so you should always run a good antivirus program.

Configuring your settings

You can configure WMS to govern how you're be displayed to others in the meeting. By clicking the down arrow next to your name, you can show yourself as Available, Busy, Be Right Back, Or Away.

You can also select the Personal Settings option to change your display name and specify whether to make your picture available to other participants. To display a picture, click the Change Picture button and navigate to the picture file on your hard disk or on the network. Note that this will associate the picture with your user account for this computer (not just for WMS), as shown in Figure E.

Figure E

You can associate a picture with your user account, to be displayed to other meeting participants.

Other personal settings options include changing from whom invitations are allowed, whether to display a notification when an invitation is received, and whether to sign you into WMS automatically when Windows starts. You can use the Sign In tab to sign in or out of People Near Me.

Inviting people to your meeting

Up to 10 people can participate in a meeting. You can invite them by selecting their names from the Invite People dialog box, by sending an e-mail invitation, or by creating an invitation file and sharing it (in a network share or via removable media or other file transfer processes). Invitation files have the .wcinv file extension.

If the Invite People dialog box doesn't contain any names, you may not be signed into People Near Me. You'll need to sign in to be able to see the names of others who can be invited. You can see only the names of people who are on the same network subnet as you. If you want to invite someone outside your subnet, you'll have to send an invitation.

When you invite people, you can select whether to require them to enter the password to join the meeting. This option is enabled by default, and for best security practices, you should leave the box checked. Because people can configure their display names however they wish, it's possible for someone to use a fake display name and pretend to be someone else. Sending invitations via e-mail and requiring the password will prevent such people from crashing your meeting.

Distributing handouts

You can distribute handouts by selecting the file(s) you want to distribute. They will be copied to each meeting participant's computer. Participants can edit the handouts, one at a time, and those changes will be propagated to everyone else's copies, but the original document won't be changed. WMS makes and uses a duplicate of the file you select to share as a handout; it does not use the original file itself.

You can save the handouts, with edits, by clicking the Meeting menu and selecting Save Handouts. You'll be asked whether you want to save the handouts when you leave the meeting.

Note that you can't share files encrypted with EFS (Encrypting File System) as handouts.

Sharing with meeting participants

After people have joined your meeting, you can share your desktop or an application with them, as shown in Figure F.

Figure F

You can share your desktop or an application with other meeting participants

When you share your desktop, other meeting participants can see all of the items on your desktop, similar to Remote Assistance. But unlike RA, they won't be able to control your desktop unless you explicitly give control to another participant. If you do so, you can seize control again with a single click of the Take Control button. A participant can request to control an application or desktop by clicking the menu bar and selecting Request Control.

You will be notified in the meeting space interface that you are sharing your desktop, and you can see how your shared session looks on other computers, as shown in Figure G.

Figure G

When you share your desktop, you can see how it looks to other participants.

If you don't want other meeting participants to see your entire desktop, you can select a file or application to share instead, as shown in Figure H.

Figure H

You can share a document or application instead of the entire desktop.

You can instantly stop sharing at any time by clicking the Stop Sharing button. To leave the meeting, click the Meeting menu and select Leave Meeting. The meeting will continue without you until all participants have left.

Passing notes

You can communicate privately with another meeting participant by passing him or her a note. To do this, right-click on the icon representing that participant and select Send A Note. In the Send A Note dialog box, type your private message or click the Ink button to send an "ink" note.

Joining someone else's meeting

You can join a meeting someone else has set up by clicking the Join A Meeting Near Me option on the WMS screen, or by opening an invitation file that has been sent to you. You'll need the password for the meeting in order to join it, if the meeting creator has selected to require passwords.

Controlling Windows Meeting Space in your organization

You can control or restrict the use of Windows Meeting Space on your networks. You can disable the use of WMS completely through Group Policy. The setting is found in Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows Meeting Space. You can apply the policy to specific computers or users.

You can also use the Attachment Manager to set rules for the types of files that can be shared in WMS or disable sharing of handout files in WMS through Group Policy by disabling the DFS Replication object service.

Another option is to log WMS activities so that you can track who is using WMS and what they're doing. The log will include information about users who create and join meetings, IP addresses used, information about presentations, and files that are shared. You do this by turning on Windows Meeting Space auditing in Group Policy.

Finally, you can control the password length and complexity requirements for WMS, which by default mirror those of the domain user account passwords.

Summary

Windows Meeting Space is Vista's replacement for Microsoft NetMeeting. It offers a more professional interface and more functionality than Instant Messenger programs for conducting virtual meetings in situations where the large capacity and cost of an enterprise level solution such as Live Meeting is not necessary.

Glossary

Windows Meeting Space: Peer-to-peer networking application built into Windows Vista for sharing desktop, programs, files, notes, and presentations among up to 10 users; replaces Microsoft NetMeeting.

People Near Me: Windows Vista service for allowing applications to discover other Vista users on the local subnet, which uses Web Service Discovery (WS-Discovery) to publish users' names, computer names, IP addresses, and ports on which the service is listening.

User Account Control (UAC): Windows Vista security feature that reduces the attack surface of the operating system by running all users in standard user mode, even when logged on as administrators.

Network projector: Projectors connected to the local network, which can be discovered by Vista via search or by entering the projector's URL or UNC name and accessed over the network.

IPv6: The next generation of the Internet Protocol (IP) that forms the network layer component of the TCP/IP protocol suite; expands the address space by using 128-bit addresses (as compared to the 32-bit addresses used by IPv4) and includes better security mechanisms.

Ad hoc wireless network: An 802.11 wi-fi network that operates in a computer-to-computer manner instead of going through a wireless access point (WAP).

Encrypting File System (EFS): Encryption method based on digital certificates, which is built into Windows 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista; allows users to protect the confidentiality of their data on a per-file or per-folder basis.

Remote Assistance (RA): Application built into Windows XP, 2003, and Vista; enables experienced users or help desk personnel to see and control the desktop of a novice user's computer from a remote location to help troubleshoot problems or demonstrate how to perform tasks.

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