VNC^® Enterprise Edition User Guide

Configuring VNC Viewer before you connect

VNC Viewer is ready to connect to VNC Server and control a host computer out-of-the-box. You do not need to configure it. However, you can change almost any aspect to suit your requirements and environment if you wish.

Some properties must be configured before you connect. Most, however, can be configured once you are connected, and changes applied to the current connection. By default, any changes you make are applied to all future connections as well.

To configure VNC Viewer before you connect, click the Options button on the VNC Viewer: New Connection dialog. For more information on this dialog, see Starting VNC Viewer. The VNC Viewer Properties dialog opens:

(Windows XP. In this example, the dialog is in Advanced mode.)

The first time you open this dialog, it opens in Basic mode, and only one tab is available. Click the Advanced button in the bottom left corner to switch to Advanced mode and see all the tabs in the example above.

The Connection and Printing tabs are only available before you connect. The other tabs are available all the time (in Advanced mode). For more information, see Using the VNC Viewer Properties dialog.

By default, any changes you make are remembered for all future connections to any host computer. To apply them just to the next connection, turn off Use these settings for all new connections.

Configuring connections

You can configure connections using the properties on the Connection tab:

(Windows XP)

Disconnecting other users

By default, if other users are connected when you connect, you share control of the host computer’s desktop. Operations may occur unexpectedly!

To disconnect other users when you connect, turn off Shared connection (do not disconnect other VNC Viewers). Note that you may be disconnected in turn.

Disabling single sign-on (Windows and Mac OS X only)

By default, if VNC Server specifies Single sign-on as its authentication mechanism, then you may be able to connect without supplying a user name and password. This is because you have already successfully authenticated when logging on to the client computer. For more information, see Relaxing the authentication rules.

You can disable this feature if you want to connect to VNC Server using a different user name and password. This might give you access to more VNC functionality. To do this, turn off Use single sign-on if VNC Server supports it. You will need to know the user name and password of a valid host computer user.

Using a proxy server

If you are connecting over the Internet and your client computer uses a proxy server, you must tell VNC Viewer about the proxy server. You can either:

•  Use the proxy server already set up for your system. To do this, choose Use Microsoft Internet Explorer proxy settings. (This option has a different name under UNIX or Linux and Mac OS X.)

•  Set up a new proxy server. To do this, choose Use these proxy settings, and enter the details.

Configuring printing

You can configure printing using the properties on the Printing tab:

(Windows XP)

By default, when you connect, the client computer’s default printer (if it has one) is shared with the host computer and made its default while the connection is in progress. This means you can print host computer files directly to a printer attached to your client computer. For more information about this feature, see Printing host computer files to a local printer.

You can print but choose not to change the host computer’s default printer. This means you will have to explicitly select your printer when you print. To do this, turn off Make it the default printer on VNC Server.

To disable printing, choose Don’t share a printer.