Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 API exposes properties and methods in building custom chartrooms on top of Group Chat R2. However from the download site, they state that in order to install the API you should have the following Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008. They also mentioned to:
Refer to the documentation contained within UCGCSdk.msi for additional information regarding system prerequisites.
Which is I think is quite funny because of the supposed need to install the .msi package without mentioning these additional system requirements before-hand.
Furthermore, this MSI package cannot install in a development machine not running a server operating system. Oh the hilarity.
Saving you from further headaches and as a public service, here are the requirements and steps we took in setting up the development environment for the Group Chat 2007 API. These are the requisites that the download website does not tell you:
1. Operating System – At least Windows Server 2003 64-bit. Yes, that’s sixty-four-bit. We attempted installing the .msi package on a 32-bit server OS but that didn’t work out. We had to request for a virtual server for our development team in order to progress.
2. Install Visual Studio 2008 in the server development machine.
3. Install the Group Chat API.
Accessing our server development machine was funny because we had to remote desktop the server every time we need to start on chat room development. Yes, the hassle.
As of now my development team is starting to learn how to use and build on top of OCS2007 R2 platform for our BOT systems. I’ll write more on this as we go along.
For those interested, I’ve included the Group Chat .dlls and the compiled html help file so that you can take a quick look at the contents without the need experiencing the hassle of setting up the above mentioned environments.
