X-Win32 Product

In 2003, StarNet set out to develop the “ultimate” PC X server. In our view, and based on 15 years of customer feedback, that meant a product that:

1. Offers high performance over both LAN and wired/wireless Internet connections
2. Offers session “Persistency” so you can just reconnect to your remote session when you experience a Windows, power or network crash.
3. Feature a Suspend/Resume capability with “Background Processing” so you can start a session, like collecting or processing data, suspend the session and resume it at a later point to get the results and continue the session
4. Session Mobility. User want to be able to start a session on one computer, suspend it and resume the session on a second machine.

This was a talkl order, because with the exception of high speed performance on the LAN, neither X-Win32 or any other PC X server has offered any of the other requirements.

With Version 9 StarNet now offers a PC X server that delivers on all of these and other promises.

How we got there:

Step 1: Version 7: We added some 14 new X-Windows extensions to cover the requirements of new X-Windows applications

Step 2: Version 8 – We decided early on that to achieve our goals we had to build a completely new base code and optimize it for Windows XP and Vista.  Our engineers also added performance-enhancing features such as Advanced Window Cashing and Render Support.

Step 3: X-Win32 Flash Edition – Key to the ultimate PC X server would be to run X-Win32 from a USB flash drive. So you can start a session, unplug the key, stick it into another PC and resume the session from any other PC.

Step 4: X-Win32 Live Edition – The most challenging part was to build an X11-based client and server component that would keep remote sessions alive after a crash or receiving a manual suspend command.  This functionality is now nicely integrated into the X-Win32 user interface. Setting up LIVE Session is as simple as knowing your host name/IP address, login and password. Suspending it works simply by clicking the window “Close” button.