Microsoft NetMeeting is a discontinued

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

and multi-point

videoconferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...

client included in many versions of Microsoft Windows (from

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...

OSR2 to

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

). It uses the H.323 protocol for videoconferencing, and is interoperable with

OpenH323 The OpenH323 project had as its goal the development of a full featured, open source ( MPL) implementation of the H.323 Voice over IP protocol. The code was written in C++ and, through the development effort of numerous people around the world, sup ...

-based clients such as

Ekiga Ekiga (formerly called GnomeMeeting) is a VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME and Microsoft Windows. It is distributed as free software under the terms of the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later. It was the default VoIP client in Ubuntu until Octob ...

, and Internet Locator Service (ILS) as reflector. It also uses a slightly modified version of the

T.120 T.120 is a suite of point-to-multipoint communication protocols for teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and computer-supported collaboration. It provides for application sharing, online chat, file sharing, and other functions. The protocols ar ...

Protocol for

whiteboarding Whiteboarding when used in the context of computing, is the placement of shared files on an on-screen shared notebook or whiteboard. Videoconferencing and data conferencing software often lets documents as on a physical whiteboard. Whiteboardi ...

, application sharing (or by extension, desktop sharing), and file transfers.

History

NetMeeting was released on May 29, 1996, originally bundled with Internet Explorer 3, and later with

Internet Explorer 4 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (IE4) is a graphical web browser that Microsoft unveiled in Spring of 1997, and released in September 1997, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also with versions available for the classic Mac OS, Solaris, and H ...

. It incorporates technology acquired by Microsoft from UK software developer Data Connection Ltd and DataBeam Corporation (subsequently acquired by Lotus). Before video service became common on free IM clients, such as

Yahoo! Messenger Yahoo! Messenger (sometimes abbreviated Y!M) was an advertisement-supported instant messaging client (computing), client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used wit ...

and

MSN Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...

, NetMeeting was a popular way to perform video conferences and chatting over the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

(with the help of public ILS servers, or "direct-dialing" to an IP address). The defunct

TechTV TechTV is a defunct 24-hour cable and satellite channel based in San Francisco featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. In 2004, it merged with the G4 gaming channel which ultimately dissolved TechTV programming ...

channel even used NetMeeting as a means of getting viewers onto their call-in shows via webcam, although viewers had to call on their telephones, because broadband Internet connections were still rare.

Protocol architecture

NetMeeting uses H.323 standard for

: It uses G.723.1 and

G.711 G.711 is a narrowband audio codec originally designed for use in telephony that provides toll-quality audio at 64 kbit/s. G.711 passes audio signals in the range of 300–3400 Hz and samples them at the rate of 8,000 samples per second ...

standards for audio coding and offers bit-rates between 5.3

kbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

and 64

. For video coding, it uses H.263 standard and supports 30

frames per second A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

. NetMeeting multimedia conferencing sessions over the network are established via RTP, UDP and IP network protocol. Application sharing, shared whiteboard, chat, and file transfer features use

standard over

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

connections.

Discontinuation

As of

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

, the Start menu shortcut to NetMeeting was removed “by design”. Users must start conf.exe manually from the Start menu Run dialog. As of

, NetMeeting is no longer included with Microsoft Windows. NetMeeting can still be installed and run on the 32-bit versions of Windows Vista as Microsoft published an update for 32-bit versions of Windows Vista on March 22, 2007 that installs NetMeeting 3.02 on Windows Vista Business, Enterprise or Ultimate editions. However, some features are not available in 3.02 such as remote desktop sharing invitations (incoming) and whiteboard area selection. Microsoft has stated that the Vista compatible version is unsupported and is only meant as a transition tool to help support collaboration sessions when used with Windows XP-based computers. On

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate, users have the option of installing Windows XP Mode to gain access to NetMeeting. Microsoft originally recommended using newer applications such as

Meeting Space Windows Meeting Space (codenamed Windows Shared View and formerly Windows Collaboration) was a peer-to-peer collaboration program developed by Microsoft for Windows Vista as a replacement for Windows NetMeeting and it enables application sharing, ...

Remote Desktop In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a ...

, Remote Assistance,

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

Microsoft Office Live Meeting Microsoft Office Live Meeting is a discontinued commercial subscription-based web conferencing service operated by Microsoft. Live Meeting included software installed on client PCs and used a central server for all clients to connect to. The service ...

and SharedView in place of NetMeeting. All except Remote Desktop, Remote Assistance and Skype have been discontinued and none fully replaced NetMeeting. The secondary whiteboard in NetMeeting 2.1 and later uses H.324 protocol. Live Communications Server, Office Communicator, Microsoft Lync,

Skype for Business Skype for Business (formerly Microsoft Lync and Office Communicator) is an enterprise software application for instant messaging and videotelephony developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Office suite. It is designed for use with the on- ...

and now

Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication platform developed by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. Teams primarily competes with the similar service Slack, offering workspace chat and videoconferencin ...

can somewhat be considered the successors to NetMeeting in that, like NetMeeting, they support whiteboarding, desktop sharing, and file transfers - however with more features, most prominently IM. However, despite being a modern solution costing millions with dozens of developers, Microsoft Teams lacks certain features enjoyed by NetMeeting, such as the ability to fully capture the keyboard.

References

External links

Tutorial: Secure Remote Assistance with Netmeeting and Hamachi

{{DEFAULTSORT:Microsoft Netmeeting Internet Explorer add-ons

NetMeeting Microsoft NetMeeting is a discontinued VoIP and multi-point videoconferencing client included in many versions of Microsoft Windows (from Windows 95 OSR2 to Windows Vista). It uses the H.323 protocol for videoconferencing, and is interoperable w ...

Windows 98 Discontinued Windows components Teleconferencing Videotelephony

History

Protocol architecture

Discontinuation

See also

References

External links