Establish Trust on Contextual Conversation Clients in Lync 2010

Trust in a Microsoft Lync Control application is determined by the source of the contextual information offered to the user. If context comes from an installed application, then an offer of trust is present. If context comes from a URL, there is less trust.

Contextual Link is the simplest form of context for Microsoft Lync 2010 applications. The developer uses the HyperLink enumerated value to add a URL to the message. The message recipient will see the following message along with the URL and should evaluate the circumstances and decide whether to trust the URL: A contextual link has been provided with this conversation. If the link below looks suspicious do not click the link. https://www.contoso.com.

For an example of an application that sends a Contextual Link message, see Walkthrough: Add Context to an Outbound Conversation (Lync 2010 SDK).

Trusted - Context Provided by Package Registration

Alternatively, provide context by installing a package or application on the sending and receiving client computers. Trust for the application’s context is managed by registering a client-side application. This kind of registration resembles a simple plug-in model. In this case, when the user starts a conversation, the application providing context is already verified. The user can trust the installed application.

There are two package registration methods. Both methods allow the developer to deploy a trusted application to client computers without involvement or management by a system administrator. For information about package registration data, see Register Contextual Conversation Packages in Lync 2010.

Install Registration

In this method, the package registration data is typically added to the Microsoft Lync 2010 registry hive by an installing application. Install Registration is also possible using Group Policy object (GPO) deployment or by the system administrator editing the registry. Use Install Registration for Lync 2010 applications that use a default application to provide message context. For an example that shows how to perform install registration, see Walkthrough: Perform Install Registration for an Extensibility Application (Lync 2010 SDK).

Run-Time Registration

In this method, the application registration data is added to the Lync 2010 registration pool at run time by the Lync 2010 application. By using Run-Time Registration, the developer can decide to manage the contextual experience by selecting one of several alternative packages to install. For an example that shows how to perform Run-Time Registration, see Walkthrough: Perform Run-Time Registration for an Extensibility Application (Lync 2010 SDK).