Hi, some more thoughts for you

1) I'm not sure how often in other people's experiences this happens, but for me from time to time VNC crashes. Sometimes the services stops, or the winvnc.exe service is running, but not responding. I think it would be a cool thing if the VNC manager could attempt a recovery when this is the case. I suggest that even if it displays a blue circle (which in my case meant that VNC service was running, but crashed) that VNC manager, when you try to initiate a VNC session to that specific computer, end the winvnc.exe process, and then start the service, and then attempt to connect the client module to the server. If it still fails, it probably means your on the wrong port. I thought perhaps a port scan feature would be nice, to find what port VNC is running on.. And then I decided.. that’s probably not feasible- for various reasons. What do you think?

2) If I click to open the Task Manager of a PC (right click the PC -> Computer Management Tasks -> Task manager), it opens the window with the computer in the connect box, but does not connect. ??? If I right click a PC and want to open the Task manager for it, it should connect upon opening the window. As it is, I must hit connect and then it bring the list of processes. That’s too many clicks! I'm lazy :p

3) Remote Administration of Windows Services: As it is, when I want to take a look at the services running on a PC, I right click it, and go to Computer Management Tasks -> Manager Services -> and Stop, Start, or restart. After making use of this it didn't take me long to realize that I needed to know the status of a service before I did any of those. Soooo, I would click any of the three just to open the 'Manage Service' window. And that’s not all, in order to see what services are on the PC, I have to click the middle small button by the box 'Service Name' and then type in the name of the computer I just right clicked, connect to that, and then it displays is a list below the input a short scroll list of the services and their state on the target PC. Whew! That was exausting! I was trouble shhoting VNC service today and wound up using the service.msc console to do what I needed because that was too clumsy, and would not reflect the states 'Stopping' or 'Starting', only 'Running' and 'Stopped'.

Suggestion:

That Services Manager (in my humble opinion) should be reworked. It is too clumsy and not obvious to use. I do like its ability to perform an action on several PC's service at one time.. In fact.. I'm going to dedicate an entire post some suggestions, but it takes me time. As I'm sure you can tell, I'm very thorough.  Probably tomorrow or Friday I will make this post.

4) I would like the ability to rename folders.

5) If I select a custom port for installing VNC, I have to go to every PC to set what port VNC is set on that machine. Now, it is possible to change the default port globally, but I'd like the ability to set the port per folder group. I also notice that even if you change the default global setting, the PC must be removed from the DB and readded for the changes to apply. :/ Needs to be a way to adjust the port on many PCs at once. I for example, had changed the port of VNC on a folder of PC's of computers by reinstalling VNC via the Deplyoment Wizard, but then had to change the port the VNC Manager uses to open the server on every PC in the list by its properties.

6) I run VNC manager to administer 2 Domains. As it is, I can RDP to the other Domain and install on the other domain because of specific boxes in each (wizard or RDP settings window) for the seprate login information. However, it does not apply those admin logon credentials to the other WMI actions it can perform, such as reading services, adjusting the terminal settings, the Task Manager, etc. In some of those windows, it will request more logon credentials, In others, I simply get a message that I do not have authorization. I assume it is applying by default the domain settings for the domain the computer is in the the VNC manager is installed on. The program should save the admin logon credientials somehow for the other domain. Also, this should be able to be set in a properties box by global, folder, sub folder, or computer. RDP could be the credentials used, but some people do not use Admin credentials for RDP. So a sepreate box might be used. Or the program could be adapted to just have a place in the VNC Manager Options where you set the admin logon credentials for each domain, and then it automatically discovers what domain a PC is in by its full DNS name, and then applies the corresponding logon info. As it is, I do not know how the VNC Manager decides what logon credentials to apply when performaing an action on a PC.

Lastly (for now :p ) I have discovered what was happening to my VNC servers.  We run software called PC Reservation by Envisionware.  It is a computer use scheduler, for the many patrons who use our publicly provided computers.  At the end of a patron's session on the PC, it closes the explorer.exe process.  This has the side effect of closing the VNC system tray icon process, and thereby causes the winvnc.exe service to crash - not close, just stop responding. YEESH.  Thats why I was getting so many blue icons.  The VNC service was crashing, still running.  So the port was left opened, but the program was not making responces. == Blue Circle.  The service would not stop, so I had to end it using the Task Manager, and then start the service back.  The more appropriate fix I eventually discovered was to adjust the PC Reservation software so that it leaves the VNC Task tray process alone at the end of a patrons session.

Thanks!

• Open Tools->Options->Defaults->VNC Session (or RDP/VMRC session depending on your needs).
• Click Edit Default Setting and set port to a custom value. Close the dialog.
• Now click Apply to All Servers. Check Port Number in the top list. And in the bottom tree select registered computers groups you would want to update.
• Click OK. That's it