On a couple of Windows 8 computers I have seen the issue where I receive only white screen when someone shares their desktop with me in Lync 2013.
This applies to
- Fresh installed Windows 8 computer
- One year old Windows 8 computer
- Lync Peer to Peer collaboration
- The issue is consequent so it is not a specific deployment issue
- Lync conference
- All other attendees can see the screen fine so it is not an appsharing issue
- The issue is client related so it will be present for Lync Online as well as Lync on-premises
The experience
The failure is on the client computer and it is related to ActiveX Security settings in IE
When you reproduce the problem you can find a new entry in EventViewer
- To see if you have the event entries
- look for EventID 301 in the Microsoft Office-Alerts folder
- Find the related issues using PowerShell
- Get-EventLog -LogName OAlerts -InstanceId 301 | Where-Object {$_.message -match “lync”}
- By expanding the Message property you can see the CLSID entry for Lync
- Get-EventLog -LogName OAlerts -InstanceId 301 | Where-Object {$_.message -match “lync”} | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Message -First 1
- The CLSID and CATID is the same for all Lync clients accross computers, note that it is the same as the GUID’s we use in the resolution
- View the output below
The Resolution
Searching around I found this blog by Joao Loureiro posted about a year ago. The resolution is to change some registry settings
- To resolve the issue you can set the ActiveX compatibility flag in the registry
- To check if you have the entry use the following oneliner
- Get-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}” -Name “Compatibility Flags”
- Get-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}” -Name “Compatibility Flags”
- We can set the allow flag for this registry setting, instead of deleting it since it can come back
- Setting the allow flag makes sure it stays that way
- You need to open PowerShell in administrator mode in order to change registry settings
- Setting the compatibility mode for Lync 2013 64 bits or running Lync 2013 32 bits on Windows 8 32 bits
- Set-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}” -Name “Compatibility Flags” -Value 8388608
- Setting the compatibility mode for Lync 2013 32 bits on Windows 8 64 bits
- Set-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}” -Name “Compatibility Flags” -Value 8388608
- All you need to do is restart the application sharing session and the issue should be resolved, no need to restart client or computer
msunified.net 
Hi Stale,
thanks for the script. !!!
Thomas
Wow! This finally fixed the problem for me. I have been trying various methods that didn’t work. Including deleting/adding this key to the Registry manually. For some reason, that didn’t work. But your scripts worked. Thanks so much!!!
Thanks.
Actually no need to restart anything, just wait…
Thanks, it actually worked for me as well :)
Many thanks, same problem solved
Just remove the Key “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}” in the Regedit.
Thank you, thank you! I thought it was an issue with using SfB at home to our horribly complex hybrid SfB environment. I have read somewhere about Spybot S&D causing issues, which I had installed so not sure if this was the root cause of these reg settings. All is good now I have removed the reg settings.
Problem solved!
Thank you
Probleme résolu ! Problem Solved
Thank you, just delete the folder : “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}” in the Regedit.