Download TightVNC 2.5.1

There are several programs to control computers remotely. TightVNC is one such program and as the name implies, it uses VNC. ‘Tight’ refers to the use of compression, so that the program also performs well over slow connections. Since version 2.0, TightVNC is only suitable for Windows 2000 and above, Windows 9x/NT and Linux users should version 1.3.10 keep using. New in version 2.5 include separate 32bit and 64bit downloads, DFMirage, a fast mirror video driver, and full Unicode support. The complete changelog can be found below.

What’s New in Viewer for Windows

• Native 64-bit version for improved performance in x64 systems.
• Fast screen drawing and optimized decoders.
• New ZRLE decoder for improved compatibility with wide range of VNC-compatible servers.
• Desktop scaling that can be easily controlled via the toolbar.
• New feature to pause screen updates. You can freeze the remote desktop at any moment, eg to make a screenshot, examine details or demonstrate the screen to other people.
• 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.
• Easily reusable source code.

What’s New in Java Viewer

As compared to version 2.1, Java Viewer adds just one new feature, although it’s a big one:

• Desktop scaling that can be easily controlled via the toolbar.

What’s New in 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.
• 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).
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• New command-line options to share full desktop, primary monitor, selected monitor, a window, or an arbitrary rectangular area.
• 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.

New MSI-based Installer

• Parameter based silent installation. You can pre-configure TightVNC Server via MSI parameters and perform mass installation via a batch file or Group Policy.
• Both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions of the installer are available.