Alternative to MS Netmeeting Shared desktop?

Hello. We've been using MS netmeeting quite happily for voice
conversations, but the Desktop sharing feature keeps misbehaving.

Most of the time, once the call has connected and we are talking happily, I
click on the 'Sharing' icon and the new dialogue appears with 'Not in call'
in the window title.

If it were always misbehaving like this, I'd put it down to a misconfigured
firewall at one end, but it does work very well sometimes. I can't find any
reason why it should work sometimes but not others. Even when disconnecting
a call and reconnecting seconds later, it will change working to not
working.

The instances of not-working usually lasts ages. Reconnecting many times
doesn't seem to fix it.

So...
Does anyone know how to fix it please?

Or...
Does anyone know of a good alternative for just the desktop sharing please?
(Voice is very reliable, no need for an alternative there.)

A little bit of information about our setups...

My side, acting as server (because I know how to do NAT port forwarding.)
Windows 98 SE, using the supplied Netmeeting.
Help -> About Netmeeting, says version 3.0 (4.4.3345)

The other side...
Windows XP SP2
Netmeeting version 3.01 (5.1.2600.2180)

Many thanks.

Bill, you want the icon that looks like a N with a red cross.

On 02 Jan 2005 02:51:51 GMT, bill-(E-Mail Removed)lid (Bill
Godfrey) strung together this:

>Bill, you want the icon that looks like a N with a red cross.

I'm intrigued, what's this bit about?
--

SJW
Please reply to group or use 'usenet' in email subject

Lurch <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> >Bill, you want the icon that looks like a N with a red cross.
> I'm intrigued, what's this bit about?

Oh, that's just a throw-away signoff line. She was trying to talk me
through operating this program while the desktop sharing wasn't working.
She was trying to tell me to click on a certain icon, but I didn't know
which one.

So she says "You want the icon that looks like an N with a red cross."

Bill, yet another throwaway signoff line.

On 02 Jan 2005 03:13:58 GMT, bill-(E-Mail Removed)lid (Bill
Godfrey) strung together this:

>Oh, that's just a throw-away signoff line. She was trying to talk me
>through operating this program while the desktop sharing wasn't working.
>She was trying to tell me to click on a certain icon, but I didn't know
>which one.
>
>So she says "You want the icon that looks like an N with a red cross."
>
I thought there'd be a story behind it! If only I knew anything about
Netmeeting......

>Bill, yet another throwaway signoff line.

Fair enough.
--

SJW
Please reply to group or use 'usenet' in email subject

"Bill Godfrey" <bill-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:20050101215151.143$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hello. We've been using MS netmeeting quite happily for voice
> conversations, but the Desktop sharing feature keeps misbehaving.
>
> Most of the time, once the call has connected and we are talking happily,
I
> click on the 'Sharing' icon and the new dialogue appears with 'Not in
call'
> in the window title.
>
> If it were always misbehaving like this, I'd put it down to a
misconfigured
> firewall at one end, but it does work very well sometimes. I can't find
any
> reason why it should work sometimes but not others. Even when
disconnecting
> a call and reconnecting seconds later, it will change working to not
> working.
>
> The instances of not-working usually lasts ages. Reconnecting many times
> doesn't seem to fix it.
>
> So...
> Does anyone know how to fix it please?
>
> Or...
> Does anyone know of a good alternative for just the desktop sharing
please?
> (Voice is very reliable, no need for an alternative there.)
>
> A little bit of information about our setups...
>
> My side, acting as server (because I know how to do NAT port forwarding.)
> Windows 98 SE, using the supplied Netmeeting.
> Help -> About Netmeeting, says version 3.0 (4.4.3345)
>
> The other side...
> Windows XP SP2
> Netmeeting version 3.01 (5.1.2600.2180)
>
> Many thanks.
>
> Bill, you want the icon that looks like a N with a red cross.


I haven't used NM in yonks but AFAIK it doesn't support true remote desktop,
just some sort of application collaboration which is not the same.

As long as you trust the other person (effectively they will be sitting in
front of *your* computer (or vice versa) I suggest you try.

VNC, I don't use this, but it is very popular and free
www.tightvnc.com/


or the one I use all the time and recommend, RADMIN
www.famatech.com/

--
Graham.



%Profound_observation%

"Graham" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I haven't used NM in yonks but AFAIK it doesn't support true remote
> desktop, just some sort of application collaboration which is not the
> same.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but what Netmeeting does (when it works) is
*exactly* what I'm after.

Things we do...

Shopping. I start a browser and share the browser window. She can see what
I'm looking at instantly. We'll use the voice channel to talk about various
items and go clicking around for things. Its a 'browse the web together'
without messing about pasting URLs into an IRC session.

Collaborative work. She'll start up some graphical application and start
designing something. I can see the work in progress right away and make
comments.

Walkthroughs and code inspections. I start my text editor with source code
and share the text editor window. We can go through code at the same pace
and point to different things as we're going.

Bill, all I need now is a matter transporter over the internet.

"Graham" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> VNC, I don't use this, but it is very popular and free
> www.tightvnc.com/

I gave this a go, and it works surprisingly well. (Thanks) Both users can
work at the same time, although using the mouse gets a bit annoying.

Only thing is, we can't get the opposite direction to work. I don't really
want her to switch off everything that looks like a firewall, just open one
incoming port.

I've tried talking her through things to try, but its difficult to describe
how to configure a firewall when I've never used that inparticular type and
I can't look at her screen over the network. ("Can you see an option,
something like 'Incoming connections'?")

So there we have it, the end I want to act as a server is behind an
outgoing-only firewall.

Does anyone please know of a way to use TightVNC, with the client and
server ends swapped over? Effectively, she would open a client side
connection to my server, and I would see her desktop. (Much like X Windows)

If I could do this, it would be ideal for technical support. The user would
have an assurance that they have to do something before I can get access,
so I can't spy on them, and thier firewall could remain in outgoing-only
mode.

> or the one I use all the time and recommend, RADMIN
> www.famatech.com/

Would this work better around firewalls please?

Many thanks.

Bill, give me the mouse. Give!

--
http://billpg.me.uk/
usenet(at)billpg(dot)me(dot)uk

In article <20050112125839.632$(E-Mail Removed)>, "Bill Godfrey"
bill-(E-Mail Removed)lid says...
<snip>
> Does anyone please know of a way to use TightVNC, with the client and
> server ends swapped over? Effectively, she would open a client side
> connection to my server, and I would see her desktop. (Much like X Windows)
>
You need to run your client in listen mode, then she can "Add New
Client" to connect her server to your client.

Rob Morley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> You need to run your client in listen mode, then she can "Add New
> Client" to connect her server to your client.

Many thanks. Something is still up. Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

Here's how we have it set up and working, so that my friend may see and
operate my desktop.

1. I run "Launch TightVNC Server" configured to listen on port 23456.
2. I confirm this is the case by checking "netstat -a".
3. She runs "TightVNC Viewer (Best compression)" connecting to
"<myip>::23456".

This all works very happily. (Thanks)

To do the reverse, which isn't working...

1. We both reboot our computers. Nothing of VNC is running at either end.
2. I run "TightVNC Viewer (Listen mode)".
3. The small icon appears next to the clock. The V is smaller.
4. I check with "netstat -a", it is listening on port 5400 and 5500.

That's wrong, I opened up 23457 on my firewall/NAT for this service. I will
look for something along the lines of an option "listen on port".

5. Right click on the VNC listen icon, I select "New connection". (The
others have nothing to do with ports or listening.)

6. A dialogue appears "VNC Server:" with the text entry box already filled
in. "127.0.0.1::23456".

Okay, that seems an odd way to configure a port to listen on, but that's
what listening looks like before a connection has been established. Not
exactly user friendly but I can live with it.

Also, it appears that it wants to listen on the same port 23456. I can live
with that. I just have to make sure I don't have both directions running at
the same time.

7. Accepting the default "127.0.0.1::23456", I click OK. I am told "Failed
to connect to server"

Okay, that dialogue had nothing to do with configuring the port to listen
on. It was being a client again. Seems odd to have the option there at
all. "netstat -a" confirms that it is still listening on 5400 and 5500.

8. Since I can't get it to listen on the right port, I appologise to my
friend for getting her to reboot.

Bill, listening.

To recap...
My end is Win98SE. Hers is WinXPSP2. We both have a complete install of
TightVNC 1.2.9.

--
http://billpg.me.uk/
usenet(at)billpg(dot)me(dot)uk