When you start Visual Studio, by default it presents a "Start Page." This page is a quick digest of links to articles and resources that Microsoft thinks will be of interest to Visual Studio developers.

A recent entry on the Start Page that could be of interest to System i shops caught my eye: Microsoft SharedView, an application that lets you share your desktop with other people. In most respects, SharedView is like other applications of its type, such as GoToMeeting, WebEx, and others. What distinguishes SharedView is that it is available at no charge.

Using SharedView, you can organize a desktop sharing session and connect up to 15 users at a time. SharedView itself does not provide integrated voice support, but you can easily draw on teleconferencing or VoIP while using it.

Starting Off

To get started, go to the Microsoft.com/downloads [2] site and search for "SharedView." There is a small download file that you install on your PC. The requirements for using SharedView are reasonable: Windows Server 2003, Window Vista, or Windows XP, all with current service packs installed, a broadband Internet connection, and reasonable hardware. The SharedView summary page on the Microsoft site provides details of the requirements.

As with other applications of this type, one person starts the sharing. The person who begins the conference must have a no-charge Windows Live user ID. People who will participate in the sharing must also have SharedView installed on their PC, but they do not need the Windows Live ID to join the discussion.

After initiating the sharing, you can send an e-mail message to invite people to the conference. They can click a link to join, or they can simply start SharedView on their PC and enter the ID of the conference to join (you can tell them the ID number over the phone).

After they are in SharedView, participants will see what's on your desktop. You can enable them to display their mouse pointers on the screen so that they can show you their areas of interest. User mouse pointers are labeled with the participant's name.

Attendees can also request control of the screen, which you can grant to them. After a participant has control, your screen responds to entries that the participant makes (for example, clicking links or typing). You can take back control by simply clicking on your screen.

It usually takes me a little bit of time to get things like this up and running. To test SharedView, I set up my laptop and desktop next to each other, installed the program on both, and then began the session.

It Works

When you start SharedView, a toolbar appears at the top of your screen. It has a single menu with only a few items. After looking through the items for a minute, I realized that it was obvious how it worked. On the participant PC, I simply selected the option to join the conference and entered the conference ID. It took me about 10 minutes, from installation to using it, to understand the features to the point where I felt competent with SharedView.

My experience with SharedView was satisfactory. I am on a relatively slow DSL connection, and the desktop PC has a fairly low-powered processor. Also, I use a large screen monitor with a 1920x1200 resolution. The screen presentation on the laptop was not instantaneous, but it was fast enough to be usable.

System i shops might be interested in SharedView as an alternative to the green-screen Start Copy Screen command. The price is right, and it is a very easy program to install and use.