Chat Clients

A chat client is a program that allows chat users to participate in Exchange Chat Service. The chat client reads the commands and text supplied by a user, parses them, and if necessary, passes them on to the chat server. The server then routes messages to other users.

It is the Exchange system administrator's responsibility to determine which chat client to use, to make the chat client software available to users, and to provide instructions for logging on to the service. Chat clients used with Exchange 2000 Server Chat Service must be IRC compatible. Chat Service is fully compatible with many chat clients, including:

• mIRC, PIRCH, and other clients that use the IRC protocol. Shareware versions of these two clients, as well as others, are available on the Internet.
• Microsoft Chat (also known as Comic Chat) version 2.1 and later, which uses IRCX, Microsoft's proposed extensions to the standard IRC protocol. Users can download Microsoft Chat free of charge from the Microsoft corporate Web site at http://www.microsoft.com.

• Important   Chat Service no longer supports Microsoft Chat version 2.0 and earlier.