Free simple LAN chat

[moeburn]

What would be the best, simplest way for me to chat with a person on another PC on the same LAN?  I know Windows has some kind of dialog messaging system built-in, but it's one-way, dialog-only.  I just want something that sits in the system tray, that I can double-click to send a message to the other PC, that pops up with a box that they can type in to reply to me, and vice-versa.  Preferably something that doesn't require an internet connection.  Like those PA/intercom systems that some really fancy houses have?  I want that for the computers in this house, text-based.

 

I wrote such a program myself in Visual Basic several years ago, because all the chat programs I could find at the time (ICQ, MSN, Yahoo) were all internet-based.  But I've lost the program, and I don't feel like rewriting it.

[sc302 Veteran]

openfire server and spark client.

http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/index.jsp

[Growled Member]

This is what we use at work.

 

http://lanmsngr.sourceforge.net/index.php

 

Even comes in a portable version. 

[+BudMan MVC]

"What would be the best, simplest way for me to chat with a person on another PC on the same LAN?"

" I want that for the computers in this house"

 

Walk over to them ;)  Same house -- Yell out hey Bob what ya doin!

 

Do you live in a Castle or something? ;)

 

Other than that this works http://sourceforge.net/projects/achat/ but the link growled provided seems better.

[articuno1au]

I use OpenFire and Spark for my internal chat clients.

 

It's probably a bit of overkill for a few people, but it's damn good for 50+ people.

[_dandy_]

"What would be the best, simplest way for me to chat with a person on another PC on the same LAN?"

" I want that for the computers in this house"

 

Walk over to them ;)  Same house -- Yell out hey Bob what ya doin!

 

Do you live in a Castle or something? ;)

 

Other than that this works http://sourceforge.net/projects/achat/ but the link growled provided seems better.

 

Sometimes yelling out a 100-character URL across the house is impractical.

[+BudMan MVC]

Sometimes understanding a joke is very difficult for people as well ;)

[andgreen]

http://www.fomine.com/lan-chat.html good for home

http://messenger.softros.com for offices, simple but not so free )

[Torolol]

using "NET SEND" ?

[Raa]

using "NET SEND" ?

Not possible in Vista or above. And extra configuration steps required in most versions of XP.

[andgreen]

using "NET SEND" ?

It depends on Windows OS, last versions should use msg or something..

[y2k2r2d2]

I remember using a heavily loaded  Program called Lan.FS . It had chat and other Awesome features like remote desktop of which i  had fun spying over the network and closing my friend's open windows.