From Leo's mailbag:
> From: A Computer User
> Sent: May 13, 2006
> To: Ask Leo!
> Subject: chatting at home
>
> Leo,
> --------------
> I have a wireless network in my home in which there are four
> computers. All have Windows XP as the OS: three run XP
> Professional, one runs XP Home Edition. All have SP2
> installed. I want to be able to send a chat message to
> another computer in my home network. I understand that before
> SP2, XP used to be able to provide for users to do this via
> XP's WINCHAT feature. I'm not able to do this anymore. My
> on-line research found that the SP2 installation no longer
> permits XP's WINCHAT to function as before. Is there a way
> around this or is there an available [freeware] software that
> will allow me to chat with someone on any computer on my
> network? I really do NOT want to have to sign up with some
> Instant Messaging (IM) service just to send a quick message
> or two. Right now, I've been sending messages by typing text
> in MS Word and selecting the printer on the network where I
> want the message to print out. It cetainly wastes paper and
> ink for this kind of "instant communication". I hope you have
> an answer, Leo! Thanks!
Paper chat, eh? :-)
To be honest, the quickest, and probably the easiest overall
is simply to do just what you've indicated you don't want to:
install one of the IM clients like AIM, Messenger or Google Talk.
Quick, simple, full featured and designed to to exactly what you're
looking for.
Alternately if you ever plan to set up a VPN (virtual private
network) to access any of your machines while away from home,
Hamachi (http://hamachi.cc) includes a chat feature among members
of a VPN.
I'm know there are other solutions out there, but they're about
as much work, if not more, than just using one of the IM services.
Thanks for asking,
Leo
Article 1276
| Category:
Instant Messaging
