Windows meeting sdk app joining meetings hosted by external accounts — recommended approach?

Meeting SDK Windows
1

Hi Zoom Team,

We have a product that uses the Meeting SDK for Windows in an unattended kiosk configuration. The device is shared hardware in a physical space — there is no signed-in Zoom user on the device, and users do not log in to the device itself. The device joins Zoom meetings programmatically based on a meeting number/link provided by an end customer.

Use case:

  • A customer pastes a Zoom meeting link or meeting number into our application.

  • The unattended windows device joins that meeting and presents audio/video to people physically in front of it.

  • The meetings are typically hosted by external Zoom accounts (i.e. hosted by the customer’s partner or another organization, not by us).

  • Joining meetings that we host on our own Zoom account works correctly.

  • Joining meetings hosted by external accounts currently fails with meeting_fail_code_63.

My question:

What is Zoom’s recommended end-to-end flow for our use case — an unattended Windows Meeting SDK client joining meetings hosted by external Zoom accounts?

Specifically, guidance on:

  1. What credentials/tokens should the SDK be initialized with for this scenario?

  2. Whether any setup is required on the meeting host’s side (e.g., enabling something in their Zoom account, pre-approving our app, etc.).

  3. Whether anything is required on our side beyond the SDK key/secret pair (e.g., Marketplace app publishing, OAuth setup, account configuration).

  4. Any officially supported patterns or reference docs for kiosk / room-system style Meeting SDK deployments where there is no per-device Zoom login.

Thank you.

2

You could try using ZAK tokens with a dedicated service account from your Zoom workspace. Create a real Zoom user for the Windows Meeting SDK app, have that user complete OAuth authorization, then have your backend fetch that user’s ZAK and pass it into the SDK join flow. That gives Zoom a concrete user identity for the SDK participant instead of relying on an anonymous guest join.

The main thing to watch is that the ZAK represents that service account’s Zoom identity, so avoid using the meeting host’s ZAK unless the SDK client should actually join as the host. For an unattended app or kiosk, a dedicated service account can keep permissions, display name, auditability, and revocation isolated from any human user’s account.

Alternatively, you could use Recall.ai’s Meeting Bot API to record Zoom meetings.