How to Connect Mac VNC to a Windows Server With TightVNC Server

Connect your Mac to a remote desktop over TightVNC.

Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is a family of communication protocols. VNC server software runs on a computer to export a desktop to remote clients; clients run VNC client software to interact with the remote desktop as if they were sitting in front of the server themselves. Among other variants of the original VNC protocol, TightVNC uses tighter encoding to place lower demands on the communication network. This allows it to provide a more responsive user experience on slow networks. The default VNC client for Mac OS does not support the TightVNC protocol. You can connect to a TightVNC server running on any operating system from your Mac computer.

Instructions

1. Launch a Web browser. Go to the "Java Viewer with SSH Tunneling" Web page. Click on the "Download now!" link. Wait until the ZIP file completes downloading.

2. Double-click on the ZIP file. A new window will open showing the files and folders packed into the ZIP archive. Copy them all to your local disk; they will be decompressed one by one as the copy operation proceeds.

3. Click on "Applications," then on "Utilities" on the Mac OS desktop. Select "Terminal." A terminal window will open, ready to accept command lines.

4. Type the following lines into the terminal window:

   cd myTightVNCJavaViewerDir

   java VncViewer HOST remoteVNCserver

   Replace "myTightVNCJavaViewerDir" with the path to the directory where you saved the contents of the ZIP archive. Replace "remoteVNCserver" by the name of the host where the TightVNC server is running. Press "Enter" at the end of each line. Your Mac will establish a connection to the TightVNC server and display the remote desktop.

Resources

• TightVNC: Java Viewer with SSH Tunneling