Planning for Clients and Devices

There are several clients for Lync Server 2013 for which to plan. Administrators have the ability to limit which clients can connect so that users can use only a client that is currently supported. This simplifies troubleshooting because it’s possible to prevent unexpected clients from connecting. The current list of clients includes these:

• Lync 2013—The primary Windows client

• Lync Web App—The web-based client that provides the primary features

• Lync 2013 Mobile—The client for smartphones

• Lync 2013 Phone Edition—The client running on traditional handsets

• Online Meeting Add-in for Lync 2013—The client that provides integration with Outlook for meeting management

Another item to plan for on the topic of clients is the deployment of clients to end users. The two supported methods are to either deploy the .exe version of the client, or to extract the .msi from the executable and deploy this through Group Policy. It’s typically preferred to deploy the executable version through some other application deployment method because the .exe version performs the following tasks that the .msi doesn’t:

• Automatically performs prerequisite checks

• Installs Visual C++ components and Silverlight if missing

• Notifies the user about Media Player 11 requirements

• Uninstalls legacy OCS and Lync clients