Windows 2000 and VNC, the story thus far. . .

[Mike Spreitzer]

I've just started getting this problem, after a few months of trouble-free
operation.  My experiences might offer some useful additional clues.  In
all cases, I'm using WinVNC 3.3.3r2 --- no zlib in sight.

In The Beginning, I ran Win NT 4.0 Workstation SP3 at home and office, and
used VNC between them with no problem.  Later I upgraded to SP5.  VNC
continued to work fine.  Then I did an in-place upgrade to Windows 2000
Professional RC2, on both machines.  VNC continues to work fine.  End Of
Story for those two machines.

A few weeks ago I installed VNC on another Win NT 4.0 Workstation (call it
machine 3).  I installed Windows 2000 Server RC2 on machines 4 and 5,
configured them to be primary domain controllers (for different domains),
and installed VNC on them too.  VNC worked fine between machines 3, 4, and
5 (which are isolated from everything else).  Then I did a clean install
of NT 4.0 Server on machine 3, applied Service Pack 6a (128-bit encryption
version), and configured it to be a primary domain controller.  Also did a
clean install of Windows 2000 Server Final on machine 4, configured as
primary domain controller, and upgraded to 128-bit encryption; installed
VNC.  On machines 3 and 4 I now get exactly the symptoms reported in the
message that launched this thread.

Here's a simpler way to expose the problem: on the VNC server machine, try
the "show user settings" item from the VNC submenu in the Start menu.  It
will say "can't contact an existing VNC instance", or something like that.

I wonder if Server or not has anything to do with it.  Or whether being
domain controller contributes.  Or encryption level.  Or service pack
level.

Based on past experience, I tried varying the account used to run the
service, and the group memberships of that account.  Cranked 'em way up.
No avail.

BUT: I tried manually starting WinVNC from a "command prompt".  And it
worked!  Even though setting the service to run under the same account
(Administrator, in fact) did not.

BTW, my only hard drive's permissions grant Full Control to Everyone.

Mike



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