About online meetings

The integration of Windows NetMeeting with Microsoft Office allows you to share and make changes to a document with people at different sites in real time. When you start an online meeting from within an Office application, NetMeeting automatically starts in the background and allows you to begin sharing the contents of your document. Once you are in an online meeting, you can share applications and documents, send text messages in Chat, transfer files, and work on the Whiteboard.

You can either host an online meeting or be invited to participate in one. The host of the online meeting and all participants must have NetMeeting installed on their computers, but the host is the only person who needs to have the shared document and its application installed. Also, the host should confirm that all participants know which server will be used for the meeting and can access it.

Online meeting host

As the host, you can either schedule the meeting in advance by using Microsoft Outlook or start an unscheduled online meeting from within the document you want to share. If the participants are available and they decide to accept your invitation, the online meeting begins. You can invite participants at any time to join an online meeting. Participants whom you invite to an impromptu online meeting must have NetMeeting running on their computers for them to receive your online meeting invitation.

At the start of an online meeting, you are the only person who has control of the shared document, although all participants can see your document on their screens. You can allow participants to make changes at any time. When you are making changes to the document, the other participants can no longer make changes, but they will be able to watch you work. When someone else is making changes to the document, you will not have the use of your pointer — not only in the document, but also for any other purpose.

Online meeting participant

When you're invited to participate in an online meeting, you'll receive a message requesting you to join an upcoming online meeting or one that's ongoing. When you accept a call to join an online meeting, the Online Meeting toolbar and the document that is being shared appear on your screen.

By sharing a document with the host, participants can review and make changes to the document. During an online meeting, only one person can change the document at a time, but multiple users can work in Chat or the Whiteboard simultaneously if the host is making changes to the document.