TightVNC 1.3.10 Released

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Hello everyone,

I am glad to announce that TightVNC 1.3.10 has been released. It fixes various bugs that were reported for previous versions and adds a number of minor improvements. The files are available here.

In this announcement:

• What's New in TightVNC 1.3.10
• Windows Vista Compatibility
• (New!) TightVNC for U3 Smart Drives
• Ongoing TightVNC 1.4 Development

What's New in TightVNC 1.3.10

The most important changes in the new release are as follows:

• Windows Server: Impersonating currently logged on user while processing file transfer requests. Disabling file transfers completely if current user is unknown or nobody is logged in.
• Windows Viewer: Fixed integer overflow vulnerabilities reported by Core Security Technologies. A specially modified VNC server could currupt the heap of the connected viewer causing its crash or malfunction.
• Windows Server: Fixed rendering problems when multiple CopyRects were combined with normal updates. That could caused distortions that never updated even with full-screen polling active.
• Windows Viewer: TightVNC Viewer version 1.3.9 saved only successful connections in the list of recently visited VNC servers. Now we save unsuccessful connections too so that users would not ever have to re-type server names after connection failures. Also, several other enhancements were made to the code which handles the list of recent connections.
• Windows Viewer: Fixed problems under Windows Vista where Windows taskbar could remain visible above the full-screen window.
• Unix Server: Applied fixes for 64-bit Linux issues, a patch from Russel Miranda.
• Unix Server: Made the vncserver script read configuration from files (system-wide /etc/tightvncserver.conf and user-specific $HOME/.vnc/tightvncserver.conf).
• Java viewer: Fixed a bug that caused NullPointerException when connecting to any VNC server not supporting TightVNC protocol extensions.

The complete summary of changes is available here.

Windows Vista Compatibility

Unfortunately, TightVNC Server 1.3.10 still cannot be used as a system service in Windows Vista. This problem cannot be solved without major architectural changes in TightVNC Server code. This will be addressed in TightVNC 1.4 series (there is more information on TightVNC 1.4 development below in this document).

Besides service mode problems, TightVNC is compatible with Windows Vista and its compatibility has been improved since previous version. While TightVNC Viewer 1.3.9 might have problems with Windows taskbar shown above full-screen remote desktop, new version works in Vista the same way as it worked on any other Windows.

TightVNC for U3 Smart Drives

U3 Smart Drives are special USB flash drives developed by SanDisk. When you plug such a USB stick into any PC, it shows U3 Launchpad panel (similar to the Start menu, but on the right side of the screen) and allows you to start applications installed on that U3 drive. Applications keep their settings and documents on the U3 drive. On ejecting the drive, no personal data is left behind on the host computer (visit www.u3.com for more information).

We have prepared a special version of TightVNC for U3 Smart Drives. It can be installed on a U3 stick like any other U3 application and allows to use TightVNC (both server and viewer) in a portable way. When run from a U3 drive, TightVNC keeps its configuration and connection history (including passwords) on the flash drive and does not use the registry of the host computer.

TightVNC 1.3.10 for U3 is freely available for 30-day evaluation and should be registered after the evaluation period. TightVNC itself remains free but the U3 loader application (a separate executable) is proprietary. Note that by registering TightVNC for U3 you effectively support our free software project.

• Download TightVNC for U3

IMPORTANT NOTE: TightVNC for U3 will not work on usual USB flash drives. You will need a U3-compliant flash drive in order to install and run TightVNC for U3.

Ongoing TightVNC 1.4 Development

At the moment, TightVNC 1.3 development is almost closed. Our focus is on making next major version of TightVNC, 1.4. Our goals for TightVNC 1.4 are the following:

• Full Support for Windows Vista including the service mode of the TightVNC Server, proper compatibility with Fast User Switching and Remote Desktop sessions.
• Fast and reliable screen updates in TightVNC Server for Windows, even without mirror driver installed.
• File transfers with support for big files and ability to copy directory trees, rename and delete files and directories.
• Major usability improvements, self-documented user interface.
• Modular architecture and extensibility via plugins.

It's not just a plan, we are actively working on this since summer 2008. And we expect that the first version of TightVNC 1.4 for Windows will be ready this spring.

Besides that, we plan to resume development of TightVNC for Unix that was almost stalled for a long time. Expect new major releases of TightVNC for Unix in the nearest months.

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With Best Wishes,
Constantin Kaplinsky