Office Communicator free alternative

   For a very long time I was believing that MS  Office communicator is the only desktop IM available for communication server 2007 (OCS 2007). We were initially using the evaluation version of the MS OC which lasted for some six months. Then there was a need for a free alternative for MS OC, preferably portable. We experimented with several free IMs that supports SIP or OCS such as Jbuddy Messenger, aMSN, Windows Messenger, Office SIP messenger, Miranda etc.. But none of them seemed to work with the office communication server 2007. Fortunately I came across an information regarding a pidgin plug-in  that supports OCS 2007. This is the sipe project that develops a third party plug-in for the Pidgin instant messenger. Once again I realized that pidgin is the best free IM of our age.

The below steps gives some info on how to use pidgin with sipe for accessing OCS 2007.

   First of all you need pidgin, install any one from the below links

• http://www.pidgin.im/download/  (or)
• http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/pidgin_portable 

   Then download the sipe plugin

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/sipe/files/sipe/pidgin-sipe-1.10.0/pidgin-sipe-1.10.0-win32-bin.zip/download 

   Extract the downloaded sipe zip file, extract them and copy them to the respective pidgin folders

• pixmaps -> \Pidgin\App\Pidgin\pixmaps
• plugins -> \Pidgin\App\Pidgin\plugins
• locale -> \Pidgin\App\Pidgin\locale

   You can also download a latest sipe installer and use the msi file for installation if you are having pidgin installed in your system rather than having a portable one.

   Next is the important step, download the below two dlls supplied by the sipe and place them in the pidgin directory “\Pidgin\App\Pidgin” (This is the directory where the pidgin.exe or pidgin-portable.exe file is available)

• http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/project/sipe/sipe/pidgin-sipe-1.10.0/iconv.dll
• http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/project/sipe/sipe/pidgin-sipe-1.10.0/libxml2.dll

   Now open the pidgin messenger and add your OCS account.

   In Basic Tab,

• Protocol:  Office Communicator
• Username: <Your user name>
• DOMAIN\user: Enter the required details here if your login name is different from the user name such as a unique login ID
• Password: ********

   In advanced Tab, change

• Email services URL: https://mail.mycompany.com
• And other details if the mail server credentials are different from your OCS server.

Finally, Add the account

That’s all, everything is set. Pidgin will be able to pull your OCS contacts and status.

 
   Most importantly pidgin has an option for invisible IM status by default, which can also be used for your OCS account. However in Office communicator 2007 client, this invisible status can be enabled by a registry tweak.

   Thus, Pidgin together with its huge repository of plugins makes it even better than a MS OC, besides just being a free alternative.