How to Create Two Instances of IBM Lotus Sametime at Your Local System

IBM Sametime is instant messaging software, extensively used by corporate world for internal communication among associates. In this era of outsourcing one employee need to communicate simultaneously with his parent company and deputed company while he/she is at work. In this case we need two instances of Sametime on the local system so that we can be logged into two different servers with two different user id and password. This is something similar to the situation where we are simultaneously logged in Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk and chatting with groups of two different people.

This option is to tweak Sametime software to create two instances of Sametime instant message (IM) - one connecting to company1 instant message and another instance to company2 instant message Server. Note that without the following tweak, you can use the Sametime client to connect to only ONE instant message server at a given time. These instructions are only for windows 2000 and XP.

1. Go to "C:\Program Files\Lotus\Sametime Client" folder (assuming this is your default Sametime installation folder). Here I made an assumption that you are already using Sametime for your client company (say company1) and newly you want to create another instance for your parent company (say company2).

2. Right Click and create a new text file.

3. Rename the text file to connect.exe.local (note that the icon for the program changes to a LOCAL file icon - the file extension has to change from .txt to .local). Here, please note that there are two files - connect.exe and connect.exe.local in the same folder. This tweak will allow for windows to run multiple instances of the same program.

4. Copy "C:\Program Files\Lotus\Sametime Client" folder as "C:\Program Files\Lotus\Company2 Sametime Client" folder.

5. Modify the Connect.ini file in "C:\Program Files\Lotus\Company2 Sametime Client" folder.

6. Update the following fields in Connect.ini :
Server = Company2 instant message server address
User = your user id for company2 instant message
AutoLogin = 0
Password = your password for company2 instant message

7. Save and close that file.

8. Right Click on the Desktop. Select New --> Shortcut.

9. Paste the following including the quotes, in the "Type the location of the item" textbox "C:\Program Files\Lotus\Company2 Sametime Client\Connect.exe" /Multi (Note that '/Multi' is mandatory to run multiple instances of Sametime).

10. Click Next

11. Paste the following in "Type a name for this shortcut" textbox 'Company2 Sametime Connect'. This is just to name your second Sametime connect icon at your desktop.

12. Click Finish.

13. Drag the Shortcut to Start --> All Programs --> Startup. It will help you to start running this Sametime instance as soon as your system boots.

14. Run the "Company2 Sametime Connect" program from Start --> All Programs --> Startup. Enter your password and enable automatically log me option.

This way you can create two sessions of Sametime at your local system and both will be active simultaneously.