TightVNC Changelog

What's new in TightVNC 2.8.81

May 4, 2023
  • Server for Windows: Support for the third-party ExtendedDesktopSize pseudo-encoding has been removed due to incompatibility issues, complexity, and error-proneness. It has been replaced with a similar TightVNC-specific protocol extension, the new DesktopConfiguration pseudo-encoding, which allows users to choose a specific monitor in the viewer when a remote host has multiple monitors connected. Multi-monitor handling will be implemented in next versions of MightyViewer and Remote Ripple.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed an issue with disabled file transfers in RDP connections.

New in TightVNC 2.8.79 (Apr 6, 2023)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed an issue with file transfers that prevented them from working correctly on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 when using TightVNC versions from 2.8.75 to 2.8.78.

New in TightVNC 2.8.78 (Mar 28, 2023)

  • Server for Windows: Added handling of the SetDesktopSize command, as lack of its support caused TigerVNC viewer to crash.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed an error in processing the ExtendedDesktopSize pseudo-encoding, which caused flickering when working with TigerVNC server.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed slow performance of the Direct3D screen grabber.
  • Server and Viewer for Windows: Updated the zlib library to the latest version 1.2.13.

New in TightVNC 2.8.75 (Feb 19, 2023)

  • Server and Viewer for Windows: Updated zlib and libjpeg libraries to their latest versions. Note that older versions of zlib may have security flaws, so this may be an important reason to upgrade TightVNC.
  • Server for Windows: Added server-side support for special protocol extension allowing to display individual monitors in multi-monitor systems. Multi-monitor handling will be implemented in next versions of MightyViewer and Remote Ripple.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug causing the server to crash repeatedly (sf bug #1597).
  • Server for Windows: Blocking file transfers while the system is locked.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug with network drives browsing in service mode.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug with using default configuration set instead of the proper one when capturing screen contents in the service mode.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed an issue with resetting the mouse cursor position when viewers connected in the view-only mode.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug with User Query dialog window in RDP sessions.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug with tilde characters in Polish keyboard layout.
  • Viewer for Windows: Added a workaround to work correctly with HMI panels made by Siemens PLC.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed problems with clipboard operations when connected to several remote desktops simultaneously.
  • Server for Windows Installer: The installer now will not insist on setting an Administrative Password.

New in TightVNC 2.8.63 (Sep 17, 2021)

  • Server for Windows: Improved techniques of fast screen grabbing enabled in Windows 8 and later versions of Windows.
  • Server for Windows: Improved stability of sharing RDP sessions.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed encoding of color cursors, which worked incorrectly for certain cursor formats and shapes.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed erroneous generation of extra character in Greek keyboard layout.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed a security problem which could allow a specially crafted "evil" server execute code on the viewer machine. Technically, the security issue was caused by a buffer overrun in ZRLE decoder.

New in TightVNC 2.8.59 (Dec 17, 2020)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed remote desktop updating problems with -sharedisplay and -sharerect options. If the shared area was changed but its size remained the same, update did not happen.
  • Server and Viewer for Windows: Details in EXE and DLL file properties have been updated. This does not affect functionality in any way (sf bug #1539).

New in TightVNC 2.8.57 (Dec 17, 2020)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug arising on certain video hardware configurations that might cause the server to crash on accepting new connections (sf bug #1535).
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a problem with restoring custom wallpaper after all viewers disconnect, when using the option "Hide desktop wallpaper" (sf bugs #1505, #1100).
  • Server for Windows: Made minor user interface improvements (almost not noticeable to a normal user).
  • Installer for Windows: Fixed a problem with a configuration form shown during installation which could not be closed properly via the Task Manager.

New in TightVNC 2.8.55 (Dec 17, 2020)

  • Server and Viewer for Windows: Reverted recent changes in processing keyboard events that caused keyboard-related problems in version 2.8.53 (sf bugs #1530, #1531, #1532, #1533).
  • Server and Viewer for Windows: Fixed a build problem that caused compatibility problems with certain versions of VNC software, due to using wrong protocol extension (sf bug #1534).
  • Server and Viewer for Windows: Improved text labels and layout of elements in a number of screen forms.
  • Server for Windows: Connecting to RDP sessions is now disabled by default and should be enabled explicitly, as sharing some virtual session instead of the main screen is probably not something a user would expect by default.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a minor resource leak (although it did not seem to cause any problems during normal operation).

New in TightVNC 2.8.53 (Nov 19, 2020)

  • Server and Viewer for Windows: Added support for Unicode clipboard transfers (UTF-8). The latest public version of the standard RFB protocol (3.8) does not support Unicode text, so we implemented this via a new TightVNC protocol extension. This feature will work when supported at both ends of the connection.
  • Server for Windows: Added support for Echo messages to let viewer software check responsiveness of a server. This may be used for detecting network failures faster when there is no other traffic between Server and Viewer, and will work only with viewers that support and use this new protocol extension. Echo messages will be supported in our latest SDKs but normal TightVNC Viewer does not use them yet.
  • Server for Windows: Protection against brute-force attacks has been improved. Previously, the server allowed no more than 10 authentication failures per 30 seconds from the same IP address. Now the algorithm is more complicated: 1-second timeouts after 2 attempts, 1-minute timeouts after 8 attempts, and 1-hour timeouts after 14 attempts. In other words, it would allow no more than 38 authentication attempts within 24 hours per one IP address.
  • Server for Windows: Now it's possible to connect to an active RDP session.
  • Server for Windows: Performance has been improved in modern Windows systems (starting with Windows 8). Dragging windows over the desktop should render many times faster, due to the added support of CopyRect encoding with Direct3D and Desktop Duplication APIs.
  • Server for Windows: Performance of file transfers has been improved. In particular, listing contents of large folders should become much faster.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a crash in server running in application mode that could happen when Windows shows UAC (User Account Control) pop-up prompts. This problem is specific to reverse server-to-client connections (sf bug #1507).
  • Server for Windows: Fixed clipboard transfers. In certain cases, the server did not send clipboard contents to viewers since it wrongly decided there were no clipboard updates for those particular viewers (sf bug #1403).
  • Server for Windows: Fixed crash for large displays, with total resolution over 134 millions of pixels, e.g. 16384 Ñ… 8192 and more.
  • Server for Windows: Potentially fixed incorrect handling of mouse cursors on certain Matrox video cards.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a memory leak (rather a potential one which would not show up during normal operation).
  • Installer for Windows: New "ServiceOnly" configuration option has been added, to prevent TightVNC Server from starting in application mode.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed AltGr handling for Korean keyboard layout.

New in TightVNC 2.8.27 (Oct 23, 2019)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed server crash on changing window size when sharing one particular window with -sharewindow option (sf bug #1475).
  • Server for Windows: Fixed problems with generating incorrect symbols with certain national keyboard layouts, e.g. when pressing "3" in Turkish layout and "6" in Portugese Brazilian ABNT2 layout (sf bugs #1482, #1458).
  • Server for Windows: Fixed problem with sending black screen when a viewer requests 16-bit or 8-bit colors with big-endian byte order (sf bug #1473).
  • Server for Windows: Fixed an issue with mouse cursor jumping to the top left corner of the screen on requesting full screen update.
  • Viewer for Windows: Added support of Romanian diacritical marks.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed a problem with adding extra null character when transferring text data from clipboard (sf bug #1485).
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed incorrect handling of the -mousecursor command-line option (sf bug #1457).

New in TightVNC 2.8.23 (Jul 5, 2019)

  • Server for Windows: Implemented an adaptive algorithm for improving image quality by re-transmitting static screen areas using lossless compression.
  • Server for Windows: Added option to disable screen reading through Direct3D API.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed lockup after execution of the command -controlservice –sharewindow.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed slowdown while copying screen data through Direct3D API in multi-monitor configurations.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed slowdown while searching video windows by a class name.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a descriptor leak (low severity).
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed incorrect character transmission in Swedish keyboard layout.
  • Viewer for Windows: Added new -logpath command line option.

New in TightVNC 2.8.11 (May 25, 2018)

  • Server for Windows: Implemented performance improvements that may notably increase update speed and optimize CPU usage.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed a problem that might cause the viewer to continue sending keyboard events even after minimizing a full-screen window (sf bug #1433).
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed an incorrect calculation in keyboard handling, which unlikely caused any problems though (sf bug #1422).
  • Source Code for Windows (Server and Viewer): Migrated to Visual Studio 2015 and MSBuild tool set as the primary build environment.

New in TightVNC 2.8.8 (Apr 7, 2017)

  • Installer for Windows: Fixed a problem which caused errors in handling installation parameters (sf bug #1408).

New in TightVNC 2.8.7 (Apr 7, 2017)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed the bug causing the "Connection has been gracefully closed" problem (sf bug #1386).

New in TightVNC 2.8.6 (Apr 7, 2017)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed a problem of connecting to Windows 2003 Server after conneting via RDP.
  • Server for Windows: Added extra diagnostics for the "Connection has been gracefully closed" bug (sf bug #1386).

New in TightVNC 2.8.5 (Apr 7, 2017)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed minor resource leaks (GuiThread and SocketIPv4 objects did not always closed all their handles properly).
  • Server for Windows: Built-in Java Viewer updated to its latest version (2.8.3).

New in TightVNC 2.8.4 (Apr 7, 2017)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed server crash on some Windows 7 systems. Finally, the bug introduced in version 2.8.2 is fixed for all Windows 7 computers.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug that could make the server crash after a client has disconnected.
  • Source Code for Windows (Server and Viewer): Changed output directory structure in internal build scripts (the changes do not affect distribution packages).

New in TightVNC 2.8.3 (Apr 7, 2017)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed server crash on Windows 7 introduced in version 2.8.2.
  • Java Viewer: Fixed a problem when the viewer did not start in applet mode (sf bug #1390).

New in TightVNC 2.8.2 (Sep 30, 2016)

  • Server for Windows: Improved support for Windows 10.
  • Server for Windows: Improved support for multiple displays in Windows 8 and above.
  • Server and Viewer for Windows: A lot of bugfixes and minor improvements. [more information will follow]
  • Java Viewer: Added new -showConnectionDialog command-line option. Set to "No" if you do not want to show initial connection dialog. Default: "Yes".
  • Java Viewer: Fixed an issue that resulted in error message "Value too long" (sf bug #1379).
  • Java Viewer: Increased Java compatibility requirement, now it requires Java 1.7 (previous versions required Java 1.6).

New in TightVNC 2.8.1 (Sep 30, 2016)

  • Java Viewer: Switched to a different library for supporting SSH tunneling (now using Trilead SSH-2 instead of JSch).
  • Java Viewer: Introducing several APIs and corresponding JAR libraries for using parts of the viewer as an SDK (software development kit).
  • Java Viewer: Generating Javadoc documentation for the SDK APIs.
  • Java Viewer: Added an simple example on using the SDK APIs.

New in TightVNC 2.8.0 (Sep 30, 2016)

  • Java Viewer: Added support for TightVNC Dispatcher (a special proxy-type software that connects servers and viewers from different networks that may not be accessible directly).
  • Java Viewer: Implemented key-based SSH authentication. Files with SSH keys should be created in OpenSSH format, in $HOME/.ssh directory.
  • Java Viewer: Added better application icons.
  • Java Viewer: Improved support for OS X, added support for DockerIcon.
  • Java Viewer: Significantly improved rendering performance on Apple Macs with Retina displays.
  • Java Viewer API: Improved API for simplifying integration of the viewer into customer applications.
  • Java Viewer API: Added public API methods for choosing compression level, toggling view-only mode, and sending various protocol messages to server.
  • Java Viewer API: Computing transfer rate between client and server, making this data available via a public API.
  • Java Viewer API: Added support for sending client messages "VideoRectangleSelection" and "VideoFreeze" (TightVNC extensions) from the API.
  • Java Viewer: Conforming to new applet security requirements introduced in Java versions 7u25 and 7u51.
  • Java Viewer: Improved compatibility with built-in server of OS X. Provided a workaround for supporting 8-bit pixel formats (and formats with less than 8 bits) that were represented incorrectly by the OS X.
  • Java Viewer: Implemented new infrastructure for supporting different tunnel types (TightVNC extensions of the RFB protocol).
  • Java Viewer: Fixed a crash in ZRLE decoder when decompressing data from a built-in server of OS X.
  • Java Viewer: Fixed crashing on reading erroneous "color depth" and "bits per pixel" values in pixel format description.
  • Java Viewer: Fixed a bug with disconnecting on receiving clipboard contents from the server.
  • Java Viewer: Fixed a problem with disappearing controls while zooming out in the full-screen mode (sf bug #1267)
  • Java Viewer: Fixed a bug with endless loop in the full-screen mode (sf bug #1268)
  • Java Viewer: Refactored and fixed the source code in various places to eliminate warnings of code analysers.

New in TightVNC 2.7.10 (Jul 24, 2013)

  • TightVNC Server:
  • Now all displays are shown in Viewer when monitors are connected to different graphics cards, rather then showing only one.
  • No more cursor disappearing or freezing when an application window controlled remotely is dragged by its title bar.
  • TightVNC Viewer:
  • Added detection of a Windows key press (alone or in combination with other keys), as well as Alt -Tab combination in the full-screen mode.
  • Improved a File transfer window: file listing in the directory is now case insensitive.
  • Added sorting of files by Name, Size or date Modified either in ascending or descending order.

New in TightVNC 2.7.7 (Jul 24, 2013)

  • Server for Windows:
  • Fixed a bug with multi-monitor configurations running on Windows 8. The main display can be safely set to any monitor in a row or column.
  • On Windows 8, data is no longer corrupted when the screen resolution is not divided by four (native resolution for some laptops).
  • No more issues on the Server side when a zero compression level is set in the Viewer settings (Options > Set custom compression level > level: 0).
  • Fixed incompatibility with older versions of TightVNC Viewer (1.3.10).
  • Viewer for Windows:
  • Fixed a keyboard bug: it stopped working after a file transfer window is opened.

New in TightVNC 2.7.3 (May 29, 2013)

  • Server for Windows:
  • Fixed an issue on connection to a server from a built-in remote desktop client on Mac.
  • You can safely change screen properties (resolution, etc.) on the server running on Windows.
  • No more bad desktop size issues if the server is running on Windows 7 (SP1) or Windows Server 2008 (SP1) while there are no drivers installed. A server can be run on a virtual machine as well.
  • Added more verbose logging (when a logging level is set to 9).
  • Improved performance when the remote desktop is shown in its original size. Moreover, the image quality is now improved in case pixel-size checkerboard patterns are used.
  • Optimized Tight encoding to work faster.
  • Increased speed of ZRLE encoding up to 25%.
  • Java Viewer:
  • Fixed a compatibility issue with non-TightVNC servers (Mac remote desktop, UltraVNC) when ZRLE encoding is used.
  • Optimized memory usage when Tight or ZRLE encoding is used.

New in TightVNC 2.7.1 (Apr 26, 2013)

  • Server:
  • If a server is running on Windows 8, remote desktop screen is updated much faster.
  • Now it is possible to show a single application rather than the whole remote desktop. For that, run a server with a -shareapp CLI option and pass a running process ID as its argument.
  • Increased security when password protection for a server is used: if Administration > Ask password for each operation is checked, a password is required each time the settings are changed.
  • Added ZRLE and RRE encoding support.
  • Fixed issues when Extra Ports are used: now clients can safely establish connection to a server.
  • When a client has disconnected, pressed key states are reset on the server side.
  • Fixed an issue with drawing of a cursor on the server side when Let remote server deal with cursor option is enabled in the Viewer settings. Transparency issues for a cursor are also fixed.
  • Fixed a bug with desktop size after the screen DPI is changed.
  • Invalid JPG data now leads to error throwing rather than crashing.
  • Fixed a bug with queued and non-sent updates on desktop changes.
  • Fixed a missing system libraries error on Windows 2003 (sometimes wtsapi32.dll or psapi.dll could not be found).
  • Viewer:
  • Now it is possible to change the port the Viewer listens on (in the Listening mode) and reconnect to the server right on the fly.
  • Now Viewer can successfully connect to servers that require RFB protocol 4.0 or higher (in fact, RFB 3.8 will be used to establish connection).
  • If minimized, a full-screen window is now restored as a full-screen application rather than a windowed one.
  • Ctrl + M command is now applicable when in the full-screen mode.
  • Now correct resolution is reported in the Connection info window when a remote screen size is not divided by 4.
  • Fixed invalid memory allocations that caused Viewer to crash when a Tight or ZRLE decoder is used.
  • Fixed a bug with VNC session files if a port is less than 100.
  • Fixed grayscale color issue (instead of a full color) when a Tight decoder is used.
  • Fixed rare mouse scrolling issues.
  • Fixed memory leaking when incorrect JPG data is received.
  • Fixed a bug when Viewer cannot connect to a server (with Windows XP or Windows 2003) with a Unicode name.
  • Now a file transfer dialog can be in the background.
  • Source Code (Server and Viewer):
  • Added dependencies from Windows 8 SDK. Now the source code can be built in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.
  • Fixed issues with a Virtual Studio 2010 project file.
  • Fixed a thread-related deadlock when waiting for a thread to start.
  • Fixed a bug with image corruption when multiple clients are connected to a server (due to the refactored Server code).
  • Fixed issues with string loading from *.rc files in non Unicode builds.
  • Added correct error handling on Server or Viewer crashing (a proper message is now shown).
  • zlib library is updated to version 1.2.7.

New in TightVNC 2.6.4 (Dec 20, 2012)

  • Installer for Windows: Fixed a problem where TightVNC Server was registered as a Windows service, despite that was disabled via the MSI property SERVER_REGISTER_AS_SERVICE.
  • Server for Windows: New version of the built-in Java Viewer (version 2.6.2).
  • Server for Windows: Refactored the desktop architecture (no changes in the functionality).
  • Viewer for Windows: A number of improvements in full screen mode.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed a problem where the viewer could hang up or crash after disconnect.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed minor errors in Tight decoder.

New in TightVNC 2.6.2 (Dec 20, 2012)

  • Java Viewer: Now Java Viewer has two configurations: with and without built-in SSH tunneling.
  • Java Viewer: Added "Clear History" button to the Connection dialog.
  • Java Viewer: Added support for Local Mouse Cursor Shapes: dot cursor (default), small dot cursor, system default cursor, no cursor.
  • Java Viewer: Viewport zoom property is now saved with connection history options.
  • Java Viewer: Fixed hang-up on connecting to an out-of-range port number.
  • Java Viewer: Fixed the width of the Host combobox control on the Connection dialog.
  • Java Viewer: Fixed a problem with the button panel when it did not render properly when starting the viewer in full screen mode for the first time.

New in TightVNC 2.6.0 (Oct 31, 2012)

  • Java Viewer: Built-in SSH tunneling via the JSch library.
  • Java Viewer: Saving history and connection options, autocompleting the connection form with the last session parameters.
  • Java Viewer: Fixed a problem with erroneous message ("Connection error: cannot write 16 bytes") appearing after pressing Close in the authentication dialog.
  • Java Viewer: Fixed a bug with the viewer not showing remote screen when ShowControls option was set to 'no'.

New in TightVNC 2.5.2 (Jun 29, 2012)

  • Java Viewer: Introducing new full-screen mode, with optional auto-scaling, auto-scrolling and a pop-up toolbar.
  • Installer for Windows: Added new MSI installer properties, to automate pre-setting passwords in silent mode.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a problem with querying local users on incoming connections. TightVNC has a feature to let local user approve or reject incoming connections. If there was no user action within a pre-configured time limit, new connection will be either accepted or rejected automatically. Unfortunately, the timeout setting did not work correctly in previous version and that could result in infinite timeouts. That has been fixed.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed the Apply button in the Configuration window - it stayed disabled on editing configuration settings.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed authentication handling in RFB protocol version 3.7. This should resolve connectivity problems with Ubuntu systems and Vino servers.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed hang-up on changing language or keyboard layout. To fix this problem, Windows message handling has been re-designed completely.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed priority of preferred encodings. Previous version could work inefficiently with servers that do not support Tight encoding, because the viewer could choose uncompressed Raw encoding instead of well-compressed ZRLE.
  • Viewer for Windows: Eliminated 34-character limit on hostnames in the New Connection window.
  • Viewer for Windows: Using correct line ending characters in cross-platform clipboard transfers.
  • Viewer for Windows: Introduced a number of improvements and fixes in the user interface. That includes new commands in the toolbar and in the system menu, and architectural changes such as restoring the option to start new connections from the same Viewer instance.
  • Viewer for Windows: Adjusting viewer window size on remote desktop resizing.
  • Viewer for Windows: Other minor improvements and fixes.
  • Source Code (Server and Viewer for Windows): Improved logging architecture. The changes will not be visible to end user, but developers will appreciate new logging system. There should be no more static methods and global log objects, so it will be easier to reuse separate components in third-party applications. Now all components work via a simple logging interface or can work without logging at all.
  • Source Code (Server and Viewer for Windows): Corrected build problems in various combinations of build configurations and platforms, in both Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010.

New in TightVNC 2.5.1 (Apr 27, 2012)

  • Installer for Windows: Parameter-based silent installation. You can pre-configure TightVNC Server via MSI parameters and perform mass installation via a batch file or Group Policy.
  • Installer for Windows: Both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions of the installer are available.
  • Server for Windows: Full support for 64-bit systems. Besides obvious benefits of using native architecture, this allows to attach so called "message hooks" to 64-bit applications. In a simple language, message hooks help at detecting screen activity, so that we can get updates almost immediately instead of polling the complete screen once per second or so.
  • Server for Windows: Support for mirror video driver (DFMirage). This makes screen reading ultra-fast in all supported versions of Windows, from Windows 2000 to Windows 7. DFMirage driver is a separate product, but it's free for TightVNC users (and it's available commercially if needed).
  • Server for Windows: Improved performance when sharing a desktop with Windows Aero enabled. With Aero, each screen reading operation is expensive, and we can improve performance by reading more pixels in less operations.
  • Server for Windows: Improved logging. Most importantly, new version reports all incoming connections to Windows Event Log. Also, logging to text files has been improved - the service writes to the same log file from all its child processes. There's always just one log file, so it's easier to locate an error message or e-mail the log to technical support service.
  • Server for Windows: New option to configure extra ports mapped to arbitrary screen areas. If a client connects to such an extra port, it will be shown the corresponding part of the screen only.
  • Server for Windows: New command-line options to share full desktop, primary monitor, selected monitor, a window, or an arbitrary rectangular area.
  • Server for Windows: Optimized video processing for specific window classes. You can tell TightVNC to treat certain windows as video by providing a list of window class names. Once a matching window is detected, its contents will be sent to clients continuously, with minimum delays.
  • Viewer for Windows: Completely rewritten version, free of GPL-only source code.
  • Viewer for Windows: Native 64-bit version for improved performance in x64 systems.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fast screen drawing and optimized decoders.
  • Viewer for Windows: New ZRLE decoder for improved compatibility with wide range of VNC-compatible servers.
  • Viewer for Windows: Desktop scaling that can be easily controlled via the toolbar.
  • Viewer for Windows: New feature to pause screen updates. You can freeze the remote desktop at any moment, e.g. to make a screenshot, examine details or demonstrate the screen to other people.
  • Viewer for Windows: Unicode-enabled compilation. Unlike previous versions of TightVNC Viewer, this one fully supports Unicode and has no problems with using multiple national languages in user input, screen labels, file names etc.
  • Viewer for Windows: Easily reusable source code. The viewer has been redesigned from the scratch. The primary design goal was to develop a "remote control SDK" and build the viewer on top of it. And we've done just that. So not only we provide new version of the viewer, but we also give software developers an easy way to add remote control functionality to their products (both free and commercial). The resulting SDK has a simple interface which hides all the complexity of the underlying protocols. It's written in C++, has minimum dependencies on Windows systems and will be made truly cross-platform in its future versions.
  • Java Viewer: Desktop scaling that can be easily controlled via the toolbar.

New in TightVNC 2.0.4 (Aug 4, 2011)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed a potential security problem which could allow a logged in user to gain elevated privilegies in file transfers. This problem affected Windows 2000 systems only.
  • Server for Windows: CPU use was significantly reduced in idle periods when there are no users connected.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a problem which resulted in wrong color rendering in "big-endian" viewers (e.g. PowerPC-based Mac viewers).
  • Server for Windows: Fixed rendering of semi-transparent mouse cursors. Previously, big black boxes could be seen instead of such cursors.

New in TightVNC 2.0.3 (May 27, 2011)

  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug which prevented file transfers from working properly under Windows 2000.
  • Server for Windows: Introducing new "error handler" which allows saving memory dumps on critical errors.
  • Server for Windows: In systems with swapped left and right mouse buttons, remote mouse events will be adjusted accordingly. As a result, the remote mouse should work just like the local one.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a number of problems led to errors on setting service passwords from the installer.
  • Server for Windows: Not allowing to enter administrative passwords longer than eight characters. This limitation is caused by using standard DES-based VNC-compatible authentication. Previous versions used only the first eight characters anyway but it was possible to enter longer passwords and that could confuse users who did not know about the limitation.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a problem with injecting lowercase characters when CapsLock was on on the server. Previous version generated uppercase characters when CapsLock was on, regardless of the Shift state.
  • Server for Windows: Implemented a special trick to bypass the problem with generating "^6" instead of "6" when using US International keyboard layout. It looks like there is a bug in Windows so we could do nothing better than to cook a workaround specifically for this case.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed clipboard handling with multiple client connections. Previously, clipboard contents might not be sent to particular clients in certain circumstances.
  • Server for Windows: Adjusted log verbosity levels for log messages generated by the control interface connection, so that such messages will not overload the log any more.
  • Server for Windows: Improved support for simple RFB clients that cannot handle desktop size changes.
  • Server for Windows: Made minor adjustments in the user interface. Specifically, the "About..." form has been cleaned up, and a typo has been corrected in the Configuration window.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed a number of problems with keyboard handling: preventing modifier keys from being stuck on switching to/from the viewer window; distinguishing left and right modifiers properly; sending arbitrary Unicode characters even if they were not defined in the original X11 protocol; and sending correct codes for the keys on the numeric keypad.
  • Viewer for Windows: Ctrl-Alt-Del combination should not depend on current ScrollLock state (which normally toggles Alt key to Meta key conversion).
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed an issue with not sending update requests after choosing Minimize then Maximize on the viewer window (as opposed to the Minimize/Restore sequence which always worked correctly).
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed a number of problems with saving and restoring connection options.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed user interface logic in the Options window. There were incorrect dependencies between compression-related controls.
  • Viewer for Windows: Improved phrasing for a number of error messages and log records in the file transfer module.
  • Source Code: Visual Studio 2010 is now supported, upgraded solution and project files are included in the source distribution. Versions for Visual Studio 2008 are included as well.

New in TightVNC 2.0.2 (Nov 10, 2010)

  • Server for Windows: The server could work incorrectly or even crash when font size adjustment or DPI scaling feature was used. New version should be fully compatible with Windows desktop scaling. This fix was developed for TightVNC 2.0.1 but was not included in that version due to a packaging problem.
  • Server and Viewer for Windows: More fixes have been made to solve problems with clipboard transfers. Both server and viewer could send question characters instead of non-ASCII symbols if current input language did not match the text encoding. These fixes complement related changes introduced in version 2.0.1.

New in TightVNC 2.0.1 (Nov 10, 2010)

  • Server for Windows: The server could work incorrectly or even crash when font size adjustment or DPI scaling feature was used. New version should be fully compatible with Windows desktop scaling. [UPDATE: Due to a packaging problem this fix was not included in version 2.0.1.]
  • Server for Windows: Fixed log file rotation. After creating five backup copies, it failed to rename old files and just overwrote the most recent log file.
  • Viewer for Windows: Server-to-client clipboard transfers have been fixed. Characters beyond the basic ASCII set could be copied into the local clipboard incorrectly.

New in TightVNC 2.0 Beta 4 (May 21, 2010)

  • Installer for Windows: Fixed a bug with uninstaller not removing TightVNC entries from Add/Remove Programs list. Also, new installer should remove invalid entries left by previous Beta versions.
  • Installer for Windows: Trying to recover registry entries created with wrong permissions by previous Beta versions. Correct permissions to the service-mode configuration should give access only to SYSTEM and to the Administrators group.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug with not simulating AltGr (Alt and Ctrl) to produce characters that require AltGr to be entered correctly in current keyboard layout.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed cursor shape updates that were encoded and sent incorrectly if the cursor width was not a multiple of 16. That led to disconnects due to broken protocol synchronization.
  • Server for Windows: Control interface erroneously tried to read configuration from the registry after it was already given that configuration by the service. That could cause IP access control rules to disappear from the configuration under certain circumstances.
  • Server for Windows: Registry entries could be created with wrong permissions while writing configuration or installing initial service-mode passwords.
  • Server for Windows: Solved the problem of not shutting down the control interface if the tray menu was open at the moment of shutdown.
  • Server for Windows: More logging has been added to trace RFB initialization sequence for client connections.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a problem with sending framebuffer updates for screen areas beyond the requested region.
  • Viewer for Windows: New version fixes problems with sending key combinations like Ctrl+A, Ctrl+[ or Ctrl+Shift+^ that should produce control characters with ASCII codes below 32.
  • Viewer for Windows: Various other key combinations with Ctrl and AltGr have been fixed.
  • Viewer for Windows: Recovered CapsLock functionality that was broken in previous Beta version.
  • Viewer for Windows: Key codes have been corrected for a number of keys: F1, F2, F3, F4, "=".
  • Viewer for Windows: New viewer will reset keyboard modifiers to their actual state on restoring keyboard focus. After leaving the viewer window with Alt+Tab and returning to the viewer again, Alt could get "stuck" and one would need to press Alt once again to restore correct keyboard handling.
  • Viewer for Windows: Win key presses will not be propagated to the server any more. Otherwise, combinations like Win+R would have both local effect (e.g. open the "Run" prompt) and also open the Start menu remotely.
  • Viewer for Windows: Special ScrollLock functionality has been restored. When ScrollLock is on, the viewer will send Meta on pressing Alt. This may be handy when working on Unix servers.
  • Viewer for Windows: Fixed a problem with adjusting the listening port number using arrow buttons near the text field. It could add thousands separator and produce invalid numbers in the text field.

New in TightVNC 2.0 Beta 3 (Apr 30, 2010)

  • Server and Viewer for Windows: There were many enhancements and fixes related to keyboard handling. Keyboard handling is the primary focus of this Beta version.
  • Server for Windows: A bug with clipboard handling has been fixed. When running as a service, TightVNC Server could crash if a user copied something to the clipboard.
  • Server for Windows: There was a bug which caused the control interface to crash if the server had a lot of IP addresses. The problem has been resolved.
  • Server for Windows: File uploads could fail at changing file modification timestamps. This bug has been fixed.
  • Server for Windows: Fixed a bug with Web access not enabled by default.
  • Viewer for Windows: When run with the -help command-line option, the viewer listed a lot of options it actually does not support. This has been fixed. Unsupported options have been removed, supported options have received better documentation.
  • Viewer for Windows: Unsupported command-line options were treated as host names to connect to. Now the viewer will report error messages on discovering unknown options in the command line.
  • Viewer for Windows: The viewer used to connect to nowhere if it could not read the specified .vnc file. Now it should exit correctly after showing the error message.
  • Viewer for Windows: In connection options, the check box "Request shared session" will be disabled after the connection has been established.
  • There were other minor improvements and fixes.

New in TightVNC 2.0 Beta 2 (Apr 23, 2010)

  • Installer: Valid digital signatures have been added to the installer and installed TightVNC executable files.
  • Installer: Featuring new option to add exceptions for TightVNC Server and Viewer to Windows Firewall (supported in Windows XP SP2 or any later version of Windows).
  • Installer: Featuring new option to enable system services simulate well-known Ctrl-Alt-Del keyboard combination under Windows Vista and above.
  • Installer: The service configuration page (where initial passwords can be set) has become completely optional. And that page will not be auto-selected if the passwords have been set already.
  • Installer: An issue with file sharing failure has been fixed - it could be experienced after trying to set both passwords via the service configuration page. Also, there were potential problems with not actually enabling authentication on setting passwords from the installer - they have been fixed as well.
  • Installer: There was a number of other minor changes such as user interface enhancements and improvements to the installation logic.
  • Server for Windows: Keyboard handling has been fixed. Previous Beta version could handle combinations like Ctrl-C or Ctrl-V incorrectly - it could insert literal C or V instead. New version fixes that - it should interpret keyboard modifiers properly. In addition, it fully supports Windows and Menu keys. Finally, sending Ctrl-Alt-Del remotely should work on all supported versions of Windows.
  • Server for Windows: Authentication subsystem has been improved - now it would prevent brute-force attacks on passwords by introducing delays after failed authentication attempts. This works for both RFB connections and for administrative passwords. Another authentication-related fix eliminates erroneous authentication requests on reverse connections.
  • Server for Windows: Tight encoder has been fixed - it could work incorrectly in previous Beta version. It did not preserve the state of its data stream in situations when it was disabled and then re-enabled by the viewer. As a result, the viewer could not decode compressed data and had to disconnect. Corrected code accurately preserves the state of each encoder to eliminate such protocol synchronization problems.
  • Server for Windows: Clipboard handling has been recovered. Clipboard transfers could fail in either direction due to text format translation problems - resolved now.
  • Server for Windows: Mouse position tracking over multiple monitors has been fixed. Previously, coordinates of the mouse cursor could be calculated incorrectly if the primary monitor was not the leftmost and topmost one within a composite desktop.
  • Server for Windows: New version sends viewers descriptive error messages if it must close their connections in the very beginning of the session. For example, if the server does not allow "loopback" connections, the viewer will report that fact. Similarly, the viewer should report other errors like protocol version mismatch or rejects caused by repetitive authentication failures.
  • Server for Windows: Several useful command-line options have been re-implemented: -connect, -disconnectall, -reload and -shutdown (they must be preceded with either -controlservice or -controlapp in the command line). Similar options (with slightly different names) were supported by TightVNC 1.x, but there were no counterparts available in TightVNC 2.0 Beta 1.
  • Server for Windows: Compatibility with other software has been improved. In particular, palette-based pixel formats are now properly supported. TightVNC Viewer never requests indexed colors, but other RFB-compliant software may do that. Previous version of the TightVNC Server could calculate palette colors incorrectly, effectively converting all colors to black. That issue has been resolved.
  • Server for Windows: In TightVNC file transfer protocol, file modification timestamps are represented in milliseconds. However, previous version erroneously decreased precision and actually operated with pure seconds. That has been fixed.
  • Server for Windows: There was a number of other improvements, including architectural adjustments, additional logging, fixes for real and potential memory leaks, code cleanups, and so on.
  • Viewer for Windows: A bug with registering .vnc file extension has been fixed. The viewer wrote incorrect command line to the registry and then could not restore connections saved in .vnc files.
  • Viewer for Windows: Keyboard handling has been improved. New version is able to send Windows and Menu keys over the RFB protocol.
  • Viewer for Windows: File modification time format has been corrected in file transfer panels. Timestamps were formatted in UTC for some reason, but now they should show up in local time zone.
  • Viewer for Windows: "Local cursor shape" setting has been recovered. Now it should take immediate effect on pressing the Ok button in the Connection Options window. In addition, pressing that Ok button would not hide remote cursor - that was another bug fixed in this version.
  • Viewer for Windows: TightVNC Viewer could write repetitive entries to the connection history and it could create meaningless directories in the registry when parsing its command line.
  • Other minor improvements and fixes have been made.

New in TightVNC 2.0 Beta 1 (Apr 23, 2010)

  • Server and Viewer for Windows: Introducing new file transfer subsystem based on new protocol extensions. Multiple files and directories can be copied at once, directories are processed recursively. Data compression is used to speed-up copying. Files can be renamed or removed, new directories can be created. File sizes are not limited by 4 Gb any more.
  • Server for Windows: Implemented new architecture which separates service code from the user interface. This enables service-mode operation under Windows Vista and Windows 7. Also, this fixes all known problems with multi-user features of modern Windows systems like Fast User Switching and Terminal Services.
  • Server for Windows: Screen updates have become reliable. If something went wrong and the picture in the viewer is garbled, incomplete or outdated, it will be recovered in reasonable time. There should be no more hidden menus or destructive window movements. If fast update detection methods fail, full-screen polling will keep updates going.
  • Server for Windows: Featuring new secure administrative interface. What was called "TightVNC tray icon" in previous versions is now a separate process which acts as a control interface to the TightVNC service. Control interface can be optionally protected with a password to make sure users cannot reconfigure or shut down the service unless they know the password (or have administrator privileges).
  • Server for Windows: There should be no more confusion between "default settings" and "user settings". In TightVNC 2.0, there is only one service-mode configuration and it is not affected by any per-user settings. The "Configure..." menu item of the service always shows the effective configuration. From the other side, TightVNC Server can be started as an application, and in that case each user has his/her own configuration.
  • Server for Windows: Featuring IP-based access control for incoming connections. Previous versions of TightVNC did allow similar IP filtering, but now everything is easily configurable. You can even test the rules on specific IP addresses, prior to applying new rules.
  • Installer: TightVNC 2.0 distribution has been packaged with new installer. It's smarter and more efficient. It tries to prevent reboots whenever possible. It invites to set passwords so that TightVNC Server would be ready to work right at the moment of finishing the installation. From the other side, it can operate silently (when run with /S option in the command line). Finally, the complete self-installing TightVNC package (both server and viewer parts, and the uninstall tool) is only 550 kilobytes in size.
  • This list of changes is not full. TightVNC Server 2.0 for Windows has been completely rewritten by the TightVNC team. It does not include old TightVNC 1.3 code. So the right answer to the "What's New?" question must be "Everything!".

New in TightVNC 1.3.10 (Apr 23, 2010)

  • Windows Server: Impersonating currently logged on user while processing file transfer requests. Disabling file transfers if current user is unknown or nobody is logged in.
  • 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 Server: Added new "-silent" command-line option which modifies the behavior of -install, -reinstall and -remove options and makes them not show informational windows on successful execution. Note that -silent should precede other respective options in the command line.
  • Windows Server: LastRect, XCursor and RichCursor pseudo-encodings were not properly enabled if they preceded true encodings in the SetEncodings protocol message.
  • 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 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 a bug with not loading passwords from saved .vnc files correctly if the first byte of their encrypted representation was zero.
  • Windows Viewer: Fixed problems under Windows Vista where Windows taskbar could remain visible above the full-screen window.
  • Windows Viewer: Fixed a problem with decoding JPEG rectangles wider than 2048 pixels.
  • Windows Viewer: Fixed a bug with not saving log file name correctly on using the Browse button.
  • Windows Viewer: Usability improvements in the "New Connection" dialog.
  • Windows Packaging: Improved installer and uninstall utility. In this version, self-installing executable will not try to install service in Windows Vista. Improved uninstall program always removes the WinVNC service if it was previously installed.
  • 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).
  • All viewers: Allow configuring JPEG quality level regardless of the preferred encoding set. This makes sense because TightVNC Servers can transmit video data as JPEG even if Tight is not the preferred encoding.
  • Java viewer: Fixed a bug that caused NullPointerException when connecting to any VNC server not supporting TightVNC protocol extensions.
  • Java viewer: Fixed a bug with ignoreCursorUpdates option in 24-bit color mode caused the viewer to disconnect. Thanks to Damien Mascre for pointing out the issue.
  • Java viewer: PORT parameter is not required any more, now it defaults to 5900.
  • Java viewer: Do not defer update requests by default, to minimize delays in screen updates.
  • Java viewer: Improvements in reporting statistics on disconnect.
  • Java viewer: Added debugging parameters (DEBUG_XU, DEBUG_CU) that allow using the viewer as a tool for measuring VNC server performance.
  • Other minor improvements and bugfixes.

New in TightVNC 1.3.9 (May 8, 2007)

  • All platforms: Added support for the standard RFB protocol version 3.8 with TightVNC extensions.
  • All platforms: Made "host:port" parsing maximally compatible with VNC4. Interpreting a number in host names like somehost:5900 as an actual port number if it's not in the range [0..99].
  • Windows Server: Various user interface enhancements - changes in GUI labels, tray icon with a red border when incoming connections are not possible for any reason, more information in the tray icon tip, smarter logic in displaying the Properties dialog, and more.
  • Windows Server: Fixed a problem introduced in TightVNC 1.3.8 - default passwords were not respected if user passwords were not set.
  • Windows Server: Slightly improved handling of passwords. One of the notable changes is that now it's enough to enter a view-only password without providing primary password.
  • Windows Server: Fixed problems with running WinVNC service and Terminal Services. When a Remote Desktop (RDP) client connected to the console, WinVNC showed black screen and did not restore normal operations even on disconnection of that RDP client. Now, we always share the console correctly, and disable simultaneous RDP and VNC sessions. The changes were ported from VNC 4.1.2.
  • Windows Server: Better way of simulating Ctrl Alt Del. There are reports that this solves the problem with greyed username and password fields on Windows 2003 Server (bug #887617).
  • Windows Server: Bugfix for the bug #1109102: attempt to restart the machine remotely via TightVNC led to disconnect if there was some non-saved data, and further connections were rejected.
  • Windows Viewer: Multiple selection now works in file transfers, thanks to developers at Novell and personally Rohit Kumar.
  • Windows Viewer: The viewer terminated silently when the server dropped connection right after accepting it. Now we report such errors.
  • Windows version source archive: Included project files for compiling with Visual C 2005 Express Edition. Also, all required libraries are now included within the source distribution.