Xming is the perfect choice for using the implementations of SSH or Secure Shell to forward X11 sessions. The program fortifies SSH.EXE and PuTTY, and comes with a dedicated version of PLINK.EXE. Additionally, the project offers a portable version of the program, which can be carried in a USB flash drive, and doesn’t need installation. Xming (Xming.exe) free download, latest version 7.7.0.21, Xming is the leading X Window Server for Microsoft XP/Vista/Windows7. It is fully featured, lean, fast, current, simple to install and because it is standalone native Microsoft Windows®, easily transported portable as a pocket X server.
Xming is the leading X Window System Server for Microsoft Windows®.It is fully featured, lean, fast, simple to install and because it is standalone native Windows, easily made portable (not needing a machine-specific installation or access to the Windows registry).Xming is totally secure when used with SSH and optionally includes an enhanced PuTTY Link SSH client and a portable PuTTY replacement package. Xming installers include executable code, and libraries, only built by Colin Harrison (Project Xming's chief developer).
Mesa with GLX, or Microsoft WGL, provide interactive OpenGL® 2D and 3D network transparent graphics rendering.High performance Windows AIGLX is available for graphics cards that support hardware-accelerated OpenGL.
PuTTY is Project Xming's preferred and integrated X terminal emulator for Microsoft Windows: superseding any requirement for a cumbersome POSIX API compatibility layer and simulated directory mount points.
Xming is cross-compiled on Linux for Microsoft Windows, using MinGW-w64, mostly from canonical X.Org source code with my patches applied. It is kept current and secure with frequent updates from X.Org, XCB, XKB, FreeType, Pthreads-Win32, Mesa, PuTTY and Freedesktop Bugzilla.
Screenshots
Xming -multiwindow mode on Windows 7 with five clients including a remote ParaView. | XDMCP on one X server and an xlogo X client on another. | XDMCP on one X server used to access a remote Raspberry Pi and a few clients on another. |
Releases
| Website Releases | Version | State/Notes | Released | MD5 signatures | Size MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xming Xming-x64 | 7.5.0.78 | Website Release | 11 Apr 2014 | MD5 signatures | 4.59 4.87 |
| Xming-portablePuTTY Xming-portablePuTTY-x64 | 7.5.0.79 | Website Release | 21 Apr 2014 | MD5 signatures | 1.70 1.78 |
| See Donations for how to obtain a Donor Password. | |||||
| Public Domain Releases | Version | State/Notes | Released | MD5 signature | Size MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xming-fonts | 7.5.0.70 | Public Domain | 30 Aug 2013 | df9b9d54e1a8cb291dcb4a8bc87fca23 | 30.8 |
| Xming Xming-mesa | 6.9.0.31 | Public Domain | 4 May 2007 | 4cd12b9bec0ae19b95584650bbaf534a e580debbf6110cfc4d8fcd20beb541c1 | 2.10 2.50 |
| Website Snapshots | Version | State/Notes | Snapshot | MD5 signature | Size MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snapshot Xming Snapshot Xming-x64 | 7.5.0.79 | Work in progress | 2 May 2014 12:58 | Not yet released | 4.65 4.92 |
| See Donations for how to obtain a Donor Password. | |||||
Windows installers
Xming installers make it child's play to quickly install project components, interactively, with a few mouse clicks.They also install/uninstall, silently, using command line parameters.Installers are for Windows 8/7/Vista/XP (+ server 2012/2008/2003).
Xming
Optional extras are the PuTTY Link for Xming SSH client, XLaunch wizard, Tools and clients and GLX test clients. At least 14.6MB of free disk space is required. The x64 version is specific for 64-bit Windows x64. Note: use 32-bit Xming on Itanium/ia64.Don't install anywhere other than the default directory unless you really know what you are doing and install using right-click 'Run as administrator' if necessary.
OpenGL support is now provided by all Xming installers (Xming used to have separate builds and installers; with and without Mesa).
If you intend to use PuTTY: make sure you pick the correct PuTTY Link SSH client (Plink) for use with Xming-portablePuTTY or original PuTTY i.e. there are two different Plink(s) in an Xming installer.
The Xming executable has an absolute minimum of fonts; the so-called built-ins.X clients usually need extra fonts to supplement these...
Xming-fonts
This additional installer provides standard core X fonts (which are usually required) and optional extended Bitstream Vera replacement fonts from DejaVue. At least 19.8MB of free disk space is required (for the default selection of fonts). Note: one Xming-fonts installer is common for both 32-bit and 64-bit Xming.You should install Xming-fonts in the same directory you installed Xming.For an x64 (native 64-bit) installation on 64-bit Windows (x64) this defaults to...and for a native 32-bit WoW64 installation on 64-bit Windows (x64 or ia64) defaults to...I separated these fonts from Xming installers, above, since they have a high installed footprint, don't change very often and modern X applications use client-side fonts instead via fontconfig. Xming-fonts are however needed by traditional X applications e.g. emacs.Since these standard X Window fonts tend to be ugly, you could use better TrueType fonts from your Microsoft systemlike this.
Instead of installing Xming-fonts, to provide core X fonts, you could use an X font server on your network.
Xming-portablePuTTY
This optional installer provides a fully portable replacement for PuTTY. At least 3.5MB of free disk space is required. You should not install portablePuTTY in the same directory you installed Xming: it is completely autonomous. The x64 version is specific for 64-bit Windows x64.Xming-portablePuTTY works without requiring access to the Windows registry. The portable Plink executable incorporates the changes for the PuTTY Link for Xming SSH client.
Using Xming
| Adept operating systems have X11 Network Transparency, why not Microsoft Windows? |
What can you use Xming for?
All the normal X Window Server functions and some you might not have thought of- Extend the magic of X11 Network Transparency to the ubiquitous Microsoft Desktop.
- Enable your Windows and Unix/Linux machines to integrate as a heterogeneous PRIVATE Cloud by using Xming, PuTTY and Samba.
- Use your Microsoft computer as a thin client terminal to remote Unix/Linux machines .
- Headless a Unix/Linux machine by removing its keyboard, mouse, monitor and maybe even its graphics card. Execute commands via PuTTY terminals, and display via Xming, over your network.
- Window's drivers are often faster and more capable than Linux drivers for hardware-accelerated OpenGL enabled graphics cards. Xming can exploit the capabilities of an OpenGL enabled device, on a Windows machine, by use of its -wgl option.
- You can display remote X clients directly on the Windows Desktop without running a remote Display Manager and so free up the resources used by that DM.
- Remote control your Raspberry Pi from Windows. Here is an example XLaunch file to display Midori for Raspbian wheezy using PuTTY/Plink.
- Extend server-side X fonts to include any TrueType fonts on your Windows machine. These high quality fonts can be accessed, in situ, and added to the X server font list.
- Use Xming with portablePuTTY as a pocket X server by copying both to a USB flash drive etc. Once made portable; no installed software or access to the Windows registry is needed.
- Old slow redundant Windows machines can be easily re-cycled into slick Linux machines and then accessed with Xming from your latest Windows computer. You will then get the best of both worlds, each with its own separate system architecture, security and philosophy. Xming elegantly and efficiently provides input control and graphical display for software that is running on the remote system.
- Use SSH and X-Forwarding in -multiwindow mode, instead of VNC, to reclaim precious resources (including desktop space) and facilitate cut-and-paste between windows.
- You can run Xming on multiple monitors in many ways, e.g. if you have two monitors on a Windows machine, you could put the full remote Unix/Linux session on the second monitor usingXinerama could be used to create one large virtual display, e.g. with two monitors
Manuals
This documentation is constantly being updated and may be incorrect for old versions. Don't be put off, there needs to be a lot of it to cover the many uses for the X protocol, but for most users Xming installs quickly and can be started, by the XLaunch wizard, in just a few seconds.Xming Manual.This doesn't contain any X server commands. You can view all the applicable X server commands for Xming with -help or run this XLaunch file. These online X.Org Manual pages also give more detail on generic X server and X client options.Note: not all general options are logical for Windows or honoured by Xming.
Manuals are also available for XLaunch, Xmingrc, portablePuTTY, PuTTY, Xmon, the Run utility and command line use of Xming's install and uninstall programs. All Tools and clients also have Xming manuals.
I also have a Recipe for setting up a headless Raspberry Pi and remote controlling it with PuTTY and Xming.
Getting started
Use XLaunch -find if all you want is to login to a remote machine and interact with its Display Manager via Microsoft Windows (using XDMCP).This is an elegant way to use an xserver but XDMCP mode is not very secure. It is safer to work via X-Forwarding and the SSH protocol, e.g. using PuTTY, on shared networks. Getting started with PuTTY X-Forwarding is described below and in more detail here.
A good tip: get PuTTY working first with Pageant, and use Saved Sessions, before using Xming/XLaunch. Those Saved Sessions should only use the SSH-2 protocol, 'Enable X11 forwarding' and for the following example set 'X display location' to 'localhost:0'.
To simply start Xming in -multiwindow mode from Command Processor (the Windows cmd console)This gives you a multiwindow/multimonitors X server on display-number 0 (the default), with an integrated Windows window manager. Note...
- You cannot run two X servers with the same display-number; use the :display-number option if you want multiple instances.
- On recent Windows versions: in order to easily use Xming's notification area icon(s) you should set 'Show icon and notifications', for the Xming X Server icon.
- just type 'firefox' on a PuTTY terminal connected to a remote machine
- or from a Command Processor use PuTTY's Plink tool one of two ways...
The XLaunch wizard
XLaunch is a wizard for simplifying the startup of an Xming X server. Its re-usable XML configuration files also act as mini-session managers. One X client can be selected for concurrent display from a local or remote machine. When remote, the X client is accessed securely via PuTTY or SSH.Remote login using XDMCP is also provided as well as a host finder and chooser via the -find command and XPing button...
Also use XLaunch to just simply start the X server and then run several X clients later by hand, or from Xmingrc menu entries.
Example .xlaunch configuration files for a remote xterm via PuTTY and a remote login via XDMCP.
Using the wizard to get a remote wireshark via PuTTY in -multiwindow mode...
You can select the windowing mode, the way sessions are started and save the configuration for later reuse. An XLaunch configuration file can be just clicked to rerun saved settings without having to go through the wizard pages. Also automatic validation of configuration files against the XLaunch XML Schema Definition is selectable when starting the wizard. Additionally, automatic display-number (i.e. X server) allocation is provided.
Help is available for each XLaunch page via the 'Help' button, or F1, and from these links...
Display settingsSession typeStart programXDMCP settingsAdditional parametersFinish configurationHost Finder
Remote Unix/Linux (and local Windows) programs can be run from Xmingrc menu items. Use of Plink is recommended when starting remote programs.
Xmingrc is a structured text file, so to avoid errors, study the installed default Xmingrc file (plus my Xmingrc file: see screenshots below).
Tools and clients
Many X.Org tools and clients have been ported to Microsoft Windows console (Windows CUI) applications and built modular using MinGW-w64...| appres | atobm | bitmap | bmtoa | cxpm | editres | ico | listres |
| mkfontscale | oclock | setxkbmap | sxpm | twm | viewres | xauth | xcalc |
| xclipboard | xclock | xcutsel | xdpyinfo | xev | xeyes | xfontsel | xhost |
| xkbcomp | xkill | xlogo | xlsatoms | xlsclients | xlsfonts | xmessage | xmodmap |
| Xmon | xprop | xrandr | xset | xsetroot | xwininfo |
These additional tools are also supplied in Xming installers...
- xroot is a CUI tool providing a clickable swatch of root window for use when -rootless to access window manager root menus which otherwise maybe hidden.
- follow is a simple CUI Windows text following tool, like Unix 'tail -f', for monitoring Xming log files.
- font-dirs is a tool used by an Xming installer to create a custom font-dirs file. The executable itself is not installed.
- glxgears and glxinfo (+ seventeen more GLX clients from the canonical Mesa Demos) are available separately via installer component 'GLX test clients'.
Using PuTTY with Xming is highly recommended as it provides SSH for Windows (typically used to log into remote Unix/Linux machines and execute commands) and Plink is especially useful...
PuTTY Link for Xming SSH client
PuTTY Link (Plink) is a command line connection tool, similar to Unix/Linux ssh, that is used for automating secure remote operations from XLaunch and Xmingrc.The Xming Plink SSH client is made with MinGW-w64 from patchedPuTTY code.These modifications substitute Windows prompts for many console ones because XLaunch and Xmingrc are built console free (GUI) and so stdout/stderr messages are hidden when Plink is spawned from them. Use as a replacement for Plink in 'standard' PuTTY (i.e. installers or binaries downloaded from Simon Tatham's website). Note: Xming-portablePuTTY's Plink incorporates the same changes but is not compatible with 'standard' PuTTY (there is a choice of two different Plink(s) in an Xming installer).
An example using Plink in a .js file to display a remote xterm.
The Run utility
The Run utility is an autonomous tool used to start Windows applications with a hidden attached console command window. This is the Manual for run.Its 32-bit binary, 64-bit binary and source code are supplied separately from Project Xming; and licensed GPLv2.Here is an example Desktop Shortcut using run and Plink to display a remote konsole.
Donations
Without updating equipment my Xming development can't continue or advance, hence this hardware funding initiative...Note: PayPal's site needs cookies enabled and the T&Cs below apply.
By donating you will get a Donor Password sent by email, enabling access to Xming Website Releases and Development Snapshots for private individuals. This will be sent to the email address in the PayPal payment history; so please make sure it works and that you are not blocking my ISP's mailservers (zen.co.uk e.g. smarthost01.mail.zen.net.uk). If you have contributed in other ways (e.g. code or patches), or not received your password: contact me.Also if you can't use PayPal, again contact me by email (colin<dot>harrison<at>virgin<dot>net) for alternatives. The suggested PayPal donation is £10 since less has a high percentage loss due to transfer charges. Note: You don't need a PayPal account to use PayPal from the button above, but the link does need cookies enabled.
I greatly appreciate contributions towards improving Xming's development and hosting resources. Plus, if you found Xming useful, a little thanks gives me the motivation to make it even better.
Xming Website Builds include...
- Many Enhancements, Changes and Bugfixes not in the Public Domain Release.
- The latest Website Releases and regularly updated Development Snapshots.
- Modular executables and libraries from X.Org ≥ X11R7.7 plus latest keyboard and locale databases.
- Extra Windows X clients including GLX demonstrators and Xmon.
- Support for dual-stack IP hosts (IPv4 and IPv6).
- Automatic framebuffer resizing when using the -resize option.
- OpenGL enabled rendering via either Mesa or Microsoft WGL (option -wgl provides hardware-accelerated OpenGL for graphics cards that support it).
- XCB ported to Windows without the performance degradation of a Linux API translation layer.
- The XPing XDMCP host finder/chooser integrated into XLaunch also with quick and simple activation from Xmingrc.
- Native 64-bit code installers for Windows x64.
Support
I get so much email that I literally do not have time to answer it all. I regret this, but there's nothing I can do about it. So if you can possibly avoid sending mail to me, I recommend you do so. In particular, support requests are probably better sent to newsgroups, or passed to a local expert if possible. Reports will ALWAYS be ignored by me if your complete Xming log file is not attached, if the report lacks detail and clarity and if you compare Xming with an X server not built directly from X.Org code. If a Plink problem I need the Plink command line used or a copy of your config.xlaunch file and if an Xmingrc problem I need a copy of your Xmingrc file! Tell me, upfront, if you are using virtual machine interfaces between Windows and Linux/Unix installed on the same machine. Failing to follow instructions, or answer questions, will quickly lose any interest in your problem. I do however appreciate well formulated reports and suggestions; but read this website's documentation first before asking a question...I don't reply if the answer is already here.Most issues, outside the scope of the Manuals, can be resolved by consulting the Trouble with Xming? documentation and Terms and Conditions...
Terms and Conditions
This URL links to the Project Xming terms and conditions including details on copyright and licenses with many clarifications.These may change from time to time. It remains your responsibility to check them whenever you access this website or download, install and use any Project Xming software.Table of contents
- Releases
- Windows installers
- Using Xming
The Xming website, documentation and images are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.
Microsoft product screen shots: 'Used with permission from Microsoft.'
Copyright © 2005-2014 Colin Harrison All Rights Reserved
Access control
Only use Xming option -ac or 'xhost +' on trusted networks, never on public ones i.e. be careful as they grant access to everyone. The X protocol network traffic is only encrypted if using X-Forwarding with SSH and this is therefore the recommended method for access control, all others method are potentially unsafe (e.g. using xhost or xauth and especially working via the defunct Telnet or Rsh/Rlogin protocols).X-Forwarding
If you use X-Forwarding: you don't need to directly use xhost/xauth or set a DISPLAY variable. Use PuTTY with SSH and X-Forwarding and enable it in the sshd server on the remote machine i.e. check its sshd_config file hasDue to a bug in OpenSSH: disabling (or badly configuring) IPv6 on Linux/Unix can mess up X-Forwarding. You may therefore need to also add this to sshd_configGetting Xming-portablePuTTY (or standard PuTTY) working first, before using Plink, XLaunch or Xming, is always a good idea. I recommend using both PuTTYgen and Pageant in that process as well as setting up some PuTTY Saved Sessions.
My typical PuTTY settings
Use PuTTY to get a remote terminal on your Windows desktop and from that run the X clients you need, or run X clients via Plink using a stored session or a user@hostname command.On that remote terminal, DISPLAY is automatically set to point at display 10 or above when X-ForwardingWarning: I recommend you do not alter DISPLAY on the remote terminal, when using X-Forwarding...you may end up with working, but unencrypted, connections to a server!
Both XLaunch and Xmingrc make starting an X client via Xming's Plink easy.If a program displays from a PuTTY console but not from Plink then the default user PATH may need configuring/changing for the remote sshd server so that ssh can find it (e.g. either build '--with-default-path=etc:etc' or use environment files in '~/.ssh').
If you are connecting to an Ubuntu Server Edition: you need package xauth installed for X-Forwarding to work. Also use pam_xauth to automatically forward xauth cookies between users when using su. Linux hint: you will also need this line in /etc/pam.d/su to forward xauth keys between users when calling su
Remote X clients will not display, via PuTTY or Plink, without a correct localhost entry in /etc/hosts on the remote machine.
- To use the X server access control program, xhost (host-based), from Command Prompt e.g. on Windows machine 192.168.0.2, with remote machine 192.168.0.3, using display-number 0...Running xhost without any arguments shows the current hosts allowed to access the server. xhost can be used to give (or deny) systems access to the server interactively, overriding the contents of Xn.hosts files.
- An X server uses a host-based access control list for deciding whether or not to accept connections from clients on a particular machine. This list initially consists of the host on which the X server is running as well as any remote machines listed in the file Xn.hosts, where n is the display-number of the X server. Each line of the file should contain a [family:]hostname with no leading or trailing spaces and the file should reside in the Xming install directory. For Xming there are only three families: inet (for IPv4 and the default when no [family:] is mentioned), inet6 (for IPv6) or si (for Server Interpreted); note that there is no local family listening and [family:] is case insensitive.
The Xming installer provides an X0.hosts file containing...Copies of X0.hosts are usually needed (X1.hosts etc) to allow Plink/SSH local access to display-numbers other than 0.
- The Xming magic cookie program, xauth (user-based), uses an Xauthority file (not the traditional .Xauthority file) in the %HOME% directory. To use xauth from Command Prompt e.g. on Windows machine 192.168.0.2 with user colin...
Environment variables
The following Windows environment variables are created or used by the server| Variable | Description |
| DISNO | The display-number (an Xming specific convenience environment variable). |
| DISPLAY | The [Host IP address]:display-number[.screen]. The -display option can be used by most clients to override this variable. |
| HOME | Defaults to %USERPROFILE%. |
| XERRORDB | Defaults to the 'path-to-Xming.exe'XErrorDB file. |
| XHOSTPREFIX | Defaults to the 'path-to-Xming.exe'X and used as the file prefix for Xn.hosts files (an Xming specific convenience environment variable). |
| XKEYSYMDB | Defaults to the 'path-to-Xming.exe'XKeysymDB file (the file is no longer required, but a custom one can still be used). |
| XLOCALEDIR | Defaults to the 'path-to-Xming.exe'locale directory. |
Where 'path-to-Xming.exe' is the location of the Xming executable, typically C:Program FilesXming.
If you run keychain for key management with SSH: you additionally get variables SSH_AUTH_SOCK and SSH_AGENT_PID. If the latter is detected by XLaunch (Run Remote/Use SSH), it runs without a Command Prompt console as an interactive password entry should not be needed.
If you mix Cygwin and Xming variables, and/or have Cygwin directories in your %PATH%, you may get unpredictable behaviour. Xming installations can co-exist with Cygwin or MSYS, but I don't support Xming run from, or concurrent with, any Linux-like environments on Windows.
Files and locations
The following files and locations are used by Xming, often in a way different from X on Linux/Unix. They are in the Xming install directory unless stated otherwise and, if customisable, are not deleted by the uninstaller.
| File or Directory | Description |
| app-defaults | The directory for X client resource files. |
| bitmaps | The directory for standard bitmap files. |
| font-dirs | A file containing a comma-separated list of directories to add to the default font path. |
| fonts | The directory containing Xming-fonts (if installed). |
| locale | The directory for locale files. This is the latest list of locales. |
| protocol.txt | The registry of protocol names used by the X server. |
| twmrc | Tom's [sic] window manager control file, renamed from .twmrc. |
| Xn.hosts | The initial access control list for display-number n. |
| Xauthority | The .Xauthority file renamed and in the %HOME% directory. Empty lock files Xauthority-c and Xauthority-l are used in %HOME%, but these should not persist. |
| Xcms.txt | The sample colour name database file. |
| Xdefaults Xdefaults-<hostname> | The .Xdefaults file renamed and in the %HOME% directory. These files resources are loaded before app-defaults. Xdefaults can be relocated using the XENVIRONMENT variable e.g. 'set XENVIRONMENT=C:testXdefaults' or just 'set XENVIRONMENT=Xdefaults' (the latter is useful if running Xming portable, when Xdefaults can be moved onto the portable device). |
| XErrorDB | The X error message database file. |
| xkb | The directory for xkb database files. This is the latest list of keyboard models, layouts and variants. |
| XLaunch.VisualElementsManifest.xml | The XML document used to deploy a custom XLaunch Start screen tile on Windows 8 onwards |
| XLaunch.xsd | The XLaunch XML Schema Definition file. |
| Xmingrc | The Xming server resource configuration file(s). |
| Xming.VisualElementsManifest.xml | The XML document used to deploy a custom Xming Start screen tile on Windows 8 onwards |
| X.Org.png | The image used as the Start screen tile on Windows 8 onwards |
font-dirs is typically supplied containing...Note: font-dirs contents are matched to the actual paths found during installation (using font-dirs.exe); if an existing file does not exist.
putty.conf, the configuration file used by portable Plink (if this is selected during Xming installation), is supplied containing...Note: that an Xming-portablePuTTY installation has its own separate putty.conf.
Xdefaults is supplied containing...xhost.bat is supplied containing...Xmingrc is supplied as a system-wide default containing...X0.hosts is supplied containing...twmrc is supplied containing jim.twrc from X.Org's twm source code.
The following files, when they exist, are located in directories other than the Xming install directory...
| File | Directory |
| fonts.dir fonts.scale | Windows System fonts directory (i.e. %WINDIR%Fonts). |
| Xauthority | %HOME% |
| Xdefaults Xdefaults-<hostname> | %HOME% |
| xkb temporary files e.g. xkb_a00560 server-0.xkm | %TMP% or %TEMP% or %USERPROFILE% or 'The Windows Directory'. First path found is used. |
| Xming.n.log | %TMP% or %TEMP% or %USERPROFILE% or 'The Windows Directory'. First path found is used. |
| XmingViewLog.txt | %TMP% or %TEMP% or %USERPROFILE% or 'The Windows Directory'. First path found is used. |
| Xmingrc | %HOME% (per-user) as well as one in the Xming install directory (system-wide). |
Java clients
If you are having a problem with -multiwindow mode and remote Java clients try setting the environmental variable on the remote machine (untested solution for rendering some Java components on JDK 6 and earlier...widely found on the internet).Keyboards
Xming keyboard data originates from the X Keyboard Configuration Database Project.The current list of keyboard models, layouts and variants is here.
If the keyboard doesn't work for your locale please email the part of the Xming log that looks something likeso that the entry can be added to the known keyboard layouts.
Also try using setxkbmap, when Xming is running, if you have the wrong language variantthis is equivalent to starting XmingI use -xkbvariant extd to get United Kingdom extended keys to work with a -xkblayout gb Microsoft keyboard.
Only on release 6.9.0.31: use the Finnish keyboard instead of the faulty Swedish one
NumLock
Some Unix flavours cannot have NumLock enabled when running Xming.Disable NumLock with remote AIX, SUN Solaris and HPUX, if keys or mouse buttons are not working, using numlockoff. The numlockoff 32-bit & 64-bit zip files contains the code and executables to check the state of the NumLock key and synthesize a keydown/keyup sequence of the NumLock key if it's down.AIX
AIX logs in using /usr/dt/config/Xsetup (used only if using dtlogin as the XDMCP client) and /usr/dt/bin/Xsession (used when logging in to CDE). These contain a call to xmodmap (for IBM keyboards) which makes the Xming keyboard go wrong. Commenting out these two calls allows you to use Xming on AIX.Note that the XKB extension is now always enabled in the X.Org X server and that the AIX X server has the XKB extension, but it is disabled by default in favour of xmodmap methods.
In order for X-Forwarding to work sshd_config may need
Mouse
If you use the Logitech Mouse Drivers: uncheck the option 'Disable Acceleration In Games' or your mouse will be slow in Xming.Logitech web-cam drivers can also cause 'Can't open display' problems.
Zone Alarm can cause Xming to freeze right after startup.
IBM ThinkPad's with a TrackPoint mouse doesn't allow simulated mouse wheel scrolling.The TrackPoint driver tries to send scroll up/down messages to the default scrollbar in a window. Xming does not use Windows scrollbars for X client windows, so we must configure the TrackPoint driver to send standard WM_MOUSEWHEEL messages to the Xming window. This can be done by editing the TrackPoint configuration file tp4table.dat (you will have to find it). Add the following to the 'Pass 0 rules' section and reboot:
Multiplemonitors
Screens cannot be positioned on anything other than the first monitor with FullScreen Shadow DirectDraw4 (-engine 4), but are OK in Shadow GDI (-engine 1)...Following on from the original patch for multiple monitors it appears that FullScreen DirectDraw4 can only draw on the 'Windows Primary Display' irrespective of the use of SM_CXVIRTUALSCREEN etc in the code.Network
Failure reports
- winClipboardIOErrorHandler!
- winClipboardProc - setjmp returned for IO Error Handler.
- winClipboardProc - setjmp returned: X. Exiting
- winMultiWindowXMsgProcIOErrorHandler!
- winInitMultiWindowXMsgProc - setjmp returned: X. Exiting.
- winInitMultiWindowXMsgProc - Caught IO Error. Exiting.
- winMultiWindowWMIOErrorHandler!
- winInitMultiWindowWM - setjmp returned: X. Exiting.
- winInitMultiWindowWM - Caught IO Error. Exiting.
IPv6
IPv6 support is now built into Xming. Users of IPv4 should not be affected and can ignore log messages like...Most tools, except the XDMCP interface matcher in DefineSelf(), should work with both protocols.You can turn off IPv6 in Xming by starting it with option
Network performance
SSH compression may be of some help on slower networks, but will slow things down on fast networks.The encoding of network traffic used by the X protocol is optimised for LANs, where the time spent encoding and decoding the data is more important than minimizing the amount of data transmitted. While this is fine for an Ethernet, it becomes a problem for very slow networks like serial lines. X.Org have abandoned LBX, their own built-in compression system, in favour of using SSH compression on slow networks.
Operation via a personal firewall, VPN or any software that modifies the TCP/IP stack, will increase latency and make the X server appear unresponsive. Especially Webwasher, Symantec Antivirus and Zone Alarm. Disabling these products isn't sufficient, uninstall them to restore network performance with the X protocol. Some badly designed virus scanners aggressively interfere with all network traffic and can cause a serious processing overhead for X. Also check you are not using any of these Intrusive Applications e.g. I turn off the Windows Defender service while running Xming.
You can use tool autorunsc -mn to list third-party LSPs inserted in your TCP/IP protocol stack.
Nagle's algorithm is detrimental to X protocol transmission over a network and can cause a performance penalty for some applications.
See also Windows performance.
Supported transports
Only the first two connection types of the following X protocol transports are configured...TCPCONN Enables the INET (IPv4) Domain Socket based transport
IPv6 Extends TCPCONN to enable IPv6 Socket based transport
UNIXCONN Enables the UNIX Domain Socket based transport
LOCALCONN Enables the SYSV Local connection transports
OpenGL with WGL (AIGLX)
If Xming's native Windows WGL interface for accelerated OpenGL (-wgl option) doesn't work with a program then you can switch on various diagnostic output. Start Xming with special environment variables set| Variable | Description |
| GLWIN_ENABLE_DEBUG=1 | Enable debugging output. |
| GLWIN_ENABLE_TRACE=1 | Enable trace output. |
| GLWIN_DUMP_PFD=1 | Output information on the requested visual and pixelformat. |
| GLWIN_DUMP_HWND=1 | Output the window handles used in some operations. |
| GLWIN_DUMP_DC=1 | Output the device context handle used in some operations. |
| GLWIN_ENABLE_GLCALL_TRACE=1 | Output GL function call trace. |
| GLWIN_ENABLE_WGLCALL_TRACE=1 | Output WGL function call trace. |
| GLWIN_DEBUG_ALL=1 | Enable all of the above. |
For exampleWhen testing with remote Linux clients it seems that Mesa's libGL prefers to use client-side swrast and transfer the image to the server using Xlib. To force the use of GLX so rendering is indirect (takes place on the server), and thus can be accelerated, set the environment variable... on the remote machine.Check that... mentions your Windows machine's graphics card vendor, if it mentions Mesa, you still have software rendering.
Accelerated indirect GL does not occur with local clients.
Note: Xming releases (7.5 series), used without option -wgl (i.e. just with software rasterization), render with the Mesa library (latest version: OpenGL 2.1, GLX 1.4, Mesa 21.0.0-devel) and usually display even the most difficult clients.
Portable Xming
If a normal Xming (static) installation exists on a machine a portable version (e.g. run from a USB key drive) may find it and then confuse paths. This can be fixed by unsetting environmental variable %ProgramFiles% or %ProgramFiles(x86)% before starting the alternative Xming.exe...Windows performance
If you insist on running the whole of KDE or Gnome in -multiwindow or -fullscreen mode: don't expect blistering performance. Use coLinux or XDMCP mode if you want a full Linux/Unix graphical environment on the Windows desktop.To get the performance benefit of the -wgl option you need an OpenGL enabled graphics card on your Windows machine. To force indirect rendering (which takes place on the server), you must...before starting the client application.There's a performance trade-off between rendering performance and network latency, so you should try both direct and indirect rendering and see which performs best in your specific circumstances. Generally, accelerated indirect rendering should be more performant for clients that render complex scenes.
Telecharger Xming 64 Bits
Windows versions supported
Xming installs on Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 onwards e.g. Windows 10.Release versions prior to NT 6.1 sp1 and ARM-based machines are not supported.
Xming and Xming-portablePuTTY, compiled 32-bit, run on 32-bit Windows and via WoW64 on 64-bit Windows (x64 and ia64). Native 64-bit (x64) versions are also available and are preferred on 64-bit Windows (x64).
Extensions, pseudocolor and bell
Xming doesn't support the MIT-SHM, XFree86-Bigfont or XVideo extensions. MIT-SHM only applies when the client and xserver are on the same machine: adding it would not improve network performance i.e. Xming is primarily designed to operate with clients over a network.Xming also does not yet have a working -pseudocolor mode, for 8-bit colour use -fullscreen -depth 8 in one window mode which enables DirectDraw4 (-engine 4).
Xming just uses the Windows MessageBeep(MB_OK) function for the bell: so no fine control of volume, pitch and duration is possible.However the bell (beep) can be switched off with X server option -f 0, or when the server is running, with various 'xset b' options.
XDMCP mode (and others)
Note: some of these notes are more generally applicable than just for XDMCP mode.Also first read about XLaunch XDMCP remote settings.- Use option -wgl, in XDMCP mode (e.g. -query), if your Windows machine's graphics card supports OpenGL.
- If you have a multiple interfaced (i.e. multihomed) Windows machine: you may need to use the -from option to set the correct source address (in IP address dotted format). This should not be necessary in recent versions.
- If you have a Windows machine with multiple interfaces on the same network as the remote host (e.g. have bonkers virtual IP addresses ): the xserver may bind to the wrong network adapter. This can be fixed by altering 'Interface metric:' numbers to give the correct adapter priority (see use a different default network card). I tested this by adding 'virtual' Microsoft Loopback Adapters, with IP addresses on the same network as a 'real' network adapter, and then playing with interface metric numbers.
- For security, Xming XDMCP mode is constrained to work only on local networks and it is not recommended to attempt to use it through routers or firewalls. Windows Defender Firewall is excepted, just allow Xming to communicate on private networks but not public ones...
- You can use Xnest running XDMCP through X-Forwarding to get a secure connection to the Xming server. e.g. from a X-Forwarding PuTTY terminal...but don't expect Xnest to be as fast as a direct XDMCP session.
- Some distributions default X Display Manager config files start X with the -nolisten tcp option, or similar, which prevents remote connections e.g. in Kubuntu file /etc/X11/fs/config: check this is only a comment...Also make sure DisallowTCP=false is in the /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom file with Ubuntu gdm...
- If you connect via XDMCP to a system that uses gdm and have a problem with the clipboard:you should add (or modify) this section in the gdm conf file...and then restart gdm.Also some X Display Managers do not work well anyway with the Xming clipboard. So just try using standard xdm as an alternative .
- If the gdm login screen (greeter) fails or crashes (or Xming endlessly restarts) try turning off Xming's RANDR extension using option...And because gdm loves to popup ' Oh no! Something has gone wrong.' (i.e. without the decency to say what that 'something' is!) try starting Xming...or remotely starting gnome-session...
- Don't use 'lightdm': install and then select a 'proper' X Display Manager
e.g. in Kubuntu...and remember to change Xaccess and kdmrc as described elsewhere. - If you are using DHCP to allocate the IP address for your Windows machine, but do not have dynamic DNS configured, XDMCP (+ the host finder and XPing) may not work. Linux/Unix XDMCP uses reverse DNS lookups to return a machine name and can silently fail if it doesn't get one. One 'quick' solution is to put 'dummy' names in remote machines' /etc/hosts files for your range of DHCP addresses. For example...
- A hostname chosen using the host finder or XPing has to still resolve (to an IPv4 address) with DNS or hosts (e.g. have an entry in C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts) for XDMCP to work with it.
- If you get 100% CPU use with Xming.exe: the chances are that the XDMCP protocol cannot establish a socket connection with the remote machine.
Table of contents
- Access control
- Keyboards
- Network
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