With the release of #Lync Server 2010, Microsoft did some changes to the Web experience. You could say that they removed CWA, built it up again and put it back in. With other words, there is no more “stand alone web im / CWA thing” But there is:

When you configure your Lync environment there are three simple URLs to set and that’s basically all you have to do, no more extra servers requiring an separate windows box. One of these url´s are the “meet.domain.com” aka Lync Web App aka LWA

LWA is now a Silverlight based meeting client and not a chat IM client like CWA was. But what if you want to just IM people from a internet coffee shop? Well there are still some options.

1. Upgrade your exchange to 2010 and you can have IM sessions from Outlook Web App.

2. Use an old CWA server (good for all those iDialog users)

3. Build your own client.

 

How do we access LWA?

To test the full functionality:

1. From the Lync client, click the down arrow at the top right and select "meet now".  This will create a new conference call.

 

2. Click the "Join Information and Meeting Options" at the top of the conference call

Click Join Information…… and copy the Meeting link to a browser,email,etc.  It will look like https://meet.domain.com/username/NCSHH64

Loading the link in a browser will initiate the Lync web app or if you have Lync Client installed the Lync Client… but you can close the client and click “Try Lync Web App”

3. Which will open the Lync Web App in a new window, so make sure to disable popup blocker for this URL

From in here there are two options.

Joining as a Guest will put you in the meeting Lobby

 

So if you are the leader or if you are an internal user, choose the second one to authenticate yourself.

If you want to share your desktop, you need to install the LWA Plugin

What’s seems to be missing so far is audio / video and share a PowerPoint presentation? But you could always just share desktop or program and show them that way, but if you are presenting, you probably use the full Lync client anyway.

The above picture to the left is LWA, the right one is the full client experience

For audio there is two options one is for LWA to call your phone or a number of your choice, the other is for you to dial in to the conference.

 

Configuring Lync RC and Exchange 2010 Sp1 to Enable OWA as a Lync Endpoint

EDIT: Ilse Van Criekinge beat me just to it but she posted first while I was still editing so. In her blog there is a nice step by step guide on how to configure OWA in Exchange 2010 SP1 as a Lync endpoint.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/ilvancri/archive/2010/09/22/configuring-exchange-2010-sp1-and-lync-rc-to-enable-owa-as-lync-endpoint.aspx

This is the Exchange 2010 Outlook Web App experience for basic IM functionality

And at last, a list of supported browsers for LWA.