Forcing Use of Lync Web App to Join a Conference

Overview

When you receive and click on a meeting request to join a Lync-based meeting, If you have Lync Client 2010 installed it will be used to join that meeting.  What if there's a problem joining the conference using the Lync thick client (there are scenarios where it may not work if there are problems with the company hosting the Lync meeting's Federation setup, etc).  Or, maybe you just want to join the meeting and use the Lync Web App instead of the Lync thick client?

Unfortunately, there's no button you can click to do this...and if you're using IE8 and above, the IE window quickly closes after you click on the link in your email so that you can't access the "Use Lync Web App" link.

However, there is a way to force the use of Lync Web App.

Solution

To force connecting to a Lync meeting using the Lync Web App instead of the Lync thick client, do the following:

  1. Open a web browser window
  2. Copy & paste the URL for joining the meeting that you received.  But do NOT press ENTER yet!
  3. Append the following string to the URL: "?SL=1" (without the double quotes)

For example, if the URL to join the Lync meeting given is:

https://meet.contoso.com/john.smith/ZR2RJ141

Change it to:

https://meet.contoso.com/john.smith/ZR2RJ141?SL=1