Use UI suppression in Microsoft Lync 2010 SDK applications to completely hide the Microsoft Lync 2010 UI. UI suppression is useful to support development of a customized, alternative UI in a Lync SDK application.

Important note Important

UI suppression disables extensibility using Automation and Microsoft Lync Controls.

UI suppression is configured through a registry key. When the key is set, Lync 2010 responds by not initializing its UI layer. When Communicator.exe is launched, the associated process is active but no interface is visible and the Lync icon is not displayed in the system tray or start bar. The Communicator process can still be accessed using the Model API. The UI suppression feature is useful when you want to embed the features of Lync in your application and will create your own UI to host those features.

Important note Important

In UI suppression mode, you can only start the Communicator process from your application by calling LyncClient . . :: . . BeginInitialize on a LyncClient instance. It cannot be started from the Startmenu. In addition, if your application initializes the Communicator process then your application must also call LyncClient . . :: . . BeginShutdown before closing your custom application.

Determining UI Suppression Mode

There are three methods to determine the current UI suppression mode.

  • Check the LyncClient . . :: . . InSuppressedMode property.

      Copy imageCopy Code 
    if (LyncClient.GetClient().InSuppressedMode == true)
{
	MessageBox.Show("Lync is configured for full user interface
suppression");
	return;
}

  • Discover the value by attempting to get an instance of the Automation class and catching the resulting exception that is raised if UI suppression is enabled.

  • If your computer is a 64 bit computer, read the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Communicator\UISuppressionModekey in the local registry, otherwise read the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator\UISuppressionModekey. This method is not supported in Lync SDK.

See Also