MS does not want VNC to work

[tburt11]

I have been around a long time. Since the days of MS Dos 1.0, in fact I first learned programming on a Terrac machine with 8 inch floppy disks. Old as dirt, almost.

I have been trying unsuccessfully to get Ultra VNC to work consistently on Vista Home for more than a year, and I have come to the ultimate conclusion that:

1) The BIG reason to upgrade to Windows Vista Business or Ultimate is to be able to get remote access to your machine.

2) If you can download VNC and get access for free, the MS business model takes a big hit. No big reason to upgrade.

3) The very fine folks at UVNC have worked very hard to figure out the security model used by Vista, and have on many occasions found ways to get VNC to work. However:

4) On the second Tuesday of each month, MS releases a security patch that somehow gets in the way of VNC.

Think about it for a moment. VNC is open source. Being able to hook into a Windows machine and control the desktop is "A SECURITY VIOLATION". So they gotta patch it. Right?

I think that no matter how hard UVNC folks may try, any working VNC for Vista is bound to stop working within a month or two. Mine always do.

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Just a little background, I have used VNC for a long time. I use it with my Linux machines and it works great with XP on down. Vista has been a nightmare. RDP with a business version works like a champ every time. Never a problem.

[tburt11]

Continued:

So why not just use the Java viewer? GOOD IDEA!

MS and Sun are not on the best of terms. Sun controls the MS Office alternative Open Office. This cannot make MS too happy.

So I go to my IE and open a window to my Vista/UVNC machine port 5800 and viola.. got a connect. It wants to install JRE (I thought I already had that?), so I go ahead. It finishes with an error. No install. I tried uninstalling Java. Even using the MS app to really get rid of the Java. Download the install instead of the online install. It installs great!

Go to run VNC in IE and it says it needs to download Java again. Ok. Error.

It appears to me that MS has stymied Java and VNC by crippling the install of JRE.

Conclusion. You can try all you want to get VNC working with Vista, but I don't hold out much hope.

I am going to bite the bullet, and upgrade to Business, just for the remote console capability. It burns my butt to do so. But I don't see a choice.

Even more frightening, is that MS is able to do this and get away with it. MS is too big too powerful. It is scary.

[tburt11]

Last followup.

IF I AM WRONG, AND SOMEONE HAS CONSISTENT LUCK WITH RUNNING VNC ON VISTA HOME (BASIC/PREMIUM) PLEASE POST THE STEPS TO MAKE IT WORK.

Thanks!

[xytsrm]

I've been using UVNC 1.0.5.1 for over an year; using the viewer on a Vista PC to access the server on an XP machine without any major issues.

I have also done the reverse, but not nearly as frequently.

X.