TightVNC and Vista: a work around
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A new machine came with Vista Home, which I don’t have time to replace. I put it to work and put TightVNC on it trying to remote control it. All I could see is black screen. The problem is sure enough a Vista one. See Workaround to Run VNC Server in Windows Vista » My Digital Life
The problems are caused by Windows Vista new security feature called Session 0 Isolation. Previous versions of Windows ran system services in the same login session as the locally logged-in user (Session 0). In Windows Vista, Session 0 is now reserved for these services, and all interactive logins are done in other sessions, causing VNC server unable to accept incoming remote control connection request.
So in order to make VNC server on Windows Vista works properly, the workaround resolution (at least until the VNC developers to come out with proper fix or update to address the new security constraint in Windows Vista) is to run VNC server in user mode.
I unregistered TightVNC and started the servcie after logging in. It worked just fine. The problem, though, is that VNC is not run as a system service, and therefore I can’t remote restart a machine and come back to log in with VNC. Too bad.
Update:
UltraVNC is a worthy alternative. It completely circumvents the above problem with TightVNC, and allows file transfer, etc. It’s not without problems, though. See UltraVNC supports Windows Vista
April 11th, 2007 at 12:51 pm e
Well, that’s very helpful…
A work-around for restarting the VNC server is to schedule a task that runs the VNC server command when Vista starts up.
Good day.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:23 am e
UltraVNC now has a Beta version that supports Vista. The 1.04RC6 allows you to log in at the login screen, and works well with the annoying User Account Control.
But I experience a period of several minutes after logging in where the desktop on the remote site is basically blank and no activities on the server side are shown on the client. It comes back after a while.
Closing the client sometimes result in crashing — some resources not cleaned up?
So my general advice is … switch to UltraVNC.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:03 pm e
Wow…! All thanks to you, I managed to save some time. I was working on this tightvnc for the last 3 hrs. haha… Owe you a million thanks…
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm e
Works like a charm, except that logging out without disabling the server causes a blue screen here, probably because I’m running the DFMirage VNC video driver (unfortunately required by some software I use). So now to figure out how to schedule the server to be shut off when I log out.
Tried the UltraVNC solution (up to RC10 now), and though it does work running as a registered service, the displayed session isn’t as good as TightVNC (using TightVNC as a client under Linux). A bit slower to update and some artifacts.
Thanks!
April 24th, 2008 at 12:08 pm e
An update on UltraVNC: while it generally works well with Vista, its viewer doesn’t seem to play well with Mac OSX’s built-in VNC. I had a lot of trouble yesterday making a connection to a colleague’s PowerBook Pro. UltraVNC viewer kept saying “disconnected, retry…” Finally I decided to use TightVNC Viewer, and it worked like a charm.
So keep your TightVNC around.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:37 am e
Change your MTU size on your routers from auto to 1460 and restart.