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A version of the Windows NT operating system
Developer	Microsoft
Source model
Released to manufacturing	November 8, 2006; 13 years ago (2006-11-08)[2]
General availability	January 30, 2007; 13 years ago (2007-01-30)[3]
Final release	Service Pack 2 (6.0.6002)[4] / May 26, 2009; 11 years ago (2009-05-26)[5]
Update method
Platforms	IA-32 and x86-64
Kernel type	Hybrid (NT)
License	Proprietarycommercial software
Preceded by	Windows XP (2001)
Succeeded by	Windows 7 (2009)
Official website	www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/default.aspx
Support status
Mainstream support ended on April 10, 2012 Extended support ended on April 11, 2017[6]

Windows Vista is an operating system produced by Microsoft as a member of the Windows NT family of operating systems for use on personal computers. Development was completed on November 8, 2006,^[2] and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released worldwide^[3] and was made available for purchase and download from the Windows Marketplace; it is the first release of Windows to be made available through a digital distribution platform.^[7] The release of Windows Vista came more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor, Windows XP, the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windows desktop operating systems.

New features of Windows Vista include an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Aero, a new search component called Windows Search, redesigned networking, audio, print and display sub-systems, and new multimedia tools such as Windows DVD Maker. Vista aimed to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and media between computers and devices. Windows Vista included version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, allowing software developers to write applications without traditional Windows APIs.

Microsoft's primary stated objective with Windows Vista was to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system.^[8] One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors was their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. In light of this, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide "Trustworthy Computing initiative", which aimed to incorporate security into every aspect of software development at the company.^[9] Microsoft stated that it prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 above finishing Windows Vista, thus delaying its completion.^[10][11]

While these new features and security improvements garnered positive reviews, Vista was also the target of much criticism and negative press. Criticism of Windows Vista targeted its high system requirements, its more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of then-new DRM technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, lack of compatibility with some pre-Vista hardware and software, longer boot time, and the number of authorization prompts for User Account Control. As a result of these and other issues, Windows Vista saw initial adoption and satisfaction rates lower than Windows XP.^[12] However, Vista usage had surpassed Microsoft's pre-launch two-year-out expectations of achieving 200 million users, with an estimated 330 million Internet users in January 2009.^[13][14]

At the release of its successor, Windows 7 (October 2009), Windows Vista (with approximately 400 million Internet users) was the second most widely used operating system on the Internet with an approximately 19% market share, the most widely used being Windows XP with an approximately 63% market share.^[15] In May 2010, Windows Vista's market share had an estimated range from 15% to 26%.^[16][17] On October 22, 2010, Microsoft ceased sales of retail copies of Windows Vista, and the OEM sales for Vista ceased a year later.^[18]

Mainstream support for Vista ended on April 10, 2012,^[19] and extended support ended on April 11, 2017.^[20] As of August 2020^[update], Vista's market share has declined to 0.42% of Windows' total market share (0.32% of all traditional PCs).^[21]

Development[edit]

Microsoft began work on Windows Vista, known at the time by its codename "Longhorn", in May 2001,^[22] five months before the release of Windows XP. It was originally expected to ship in late 2003 as a minor step between Windows XP and "Blackcomb", which was planned to be the company's next major operating system release (which would eventually be released as Windows 7). Gradually, "Longhorn" assimilated many of the important new features and technologies slated for Blackcomb, resulting in the release date being pushed back several times in three years. In some builds of Longhorn, their license agreement said "For the Microsoft product codenamed 'Whistler'". Many of Microsoft's developers were also re-tasked to build updates to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 to strengthen security. Faced with ongoing delays and concerns about feature creep, Microsoft announced on August 27, 2004, that it had revised its plans. For this reason, Longhorn was reset to start work on componentizing the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 codebase, and over time re-incorporating the features that would be intended for an actual operating system release. However, some previously announced features such as WinFS were dropped or postponed, and a new software development methodology called the Security Development Lifecycle was incorporated to address concerns with the security of the Windows codebase, which is programmed in C, C++ and assembly. Longhorn became known as Vista in 2005.^[23][24]

As Longhorn[edit]

The early development stages of Longhorn were generally characterized by incremental improvements and updates to Windows XP. During this period, Microsoft was fairly quiet about what was being worked on, as their marketing and public relations efforts were more strongly focused on Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003, which was released in April 2003. Occasional builds of Longhorn were leaked onto popular file sharing networks such as IRC, BitTorrent, eDonkey and various newsgroups, and so most of what is known about builds before the first sanctioned development release of Longhorn in May 2003 is derived from these builds.

After several months of relatively little news or activity from Microsoft with Longhorn, Microsoft released Build 4008, which had made an appearance on the Internet around February 28, 2003.^[25] It was also privately handed out to a select group of software developers. As an evolutionary release over build 3683, it contained several small improvements, including a modified blue "Plex" theme and a new, simplified Windows Image-based installer that operates in graphical mode from the outset, and completed an install of the operating system in approximately one third the time of Windows XP on the same hardware. An optional "new taskbar" was introduced that was thinner than the previous build and displayed the time differently.

The most notable visual and functional difference, however, came with Windows Explorer. The incorporation of the Plex theme made blue the dominant color of the entire application. The Windows XP-style task pane was almost completely replaced with a large horizontal pane that appeared under the toolbars. A new search interface allowed for filtering of results, searching for Windows help, and natural-language queries that would be used to integrate with WinFS. The animated search characters were also removed. The "view modes" were also replaced with a single slider that would resize the icons in real-time, in the list, thumbnail, or details mode, depending on where the slider was. File metadata was also made more visible and more easily editable, with more active encouragement to fill out missing pieces of information. Also of note was the conversion of Windows Explorer to being a .NET application.

Most builds of Longhorn and Vista were identified by a label that was always displayed in the bottom-right corner of the desktop. A typical build label would look like "Longhorn Build 3663.Lab06_N.020728-1728". Higher build numbers did not automatically mean that the latest features from every development team at Microsoft was included. Typically, a team working on a certain feature or subsystem would generate their working builds which developers would test with, and when the code was deemed stable, all the changes would be incorporated back into the main development tree at once. At Microsoft, several "Build labs" exist where the compilation of the entirety of Windows can be performed by a team. The name of the lab in which any given build originated is shown as part of the build label, and the date and time of the build follow that. Some builds (such as Beta 1 and Beta 2) only display the build label in the version information dialog (Winver). The icons used in these builds are from Windows XP.

At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in May 2003, Microsoft gave their first public demonstrations of the new Desktop Window Manager and Aero. The demonstrations were done on a revised build 4015 which was never released. Several sessions for developers and hardware engineers at the conference focused on these new features, as well as the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (previously known as "Palladium"), which at the time was Microsoft's proposed solution for creating a secure computing environment whereby any given component of the system could be deemed "trusted". Also at this conference, Microsoft reiterated their roadmap for delivering Longhorn, pointing to an "early 2005" release date.^[26]

Development reset[edit]

By 2004, it had become obvious to the Windows team at Microsoft that they were losing sight of what needed to be done to complete the next version of Windows and ship it to customers. Internally, some Microsoft employees were describing the Longhorn project as "another Cairo" or "Cairo.NET", referring to the Cairo development project that the company embarked on through the first half of the 1990s, which never resulted in a shipping operating system (though nearly all the technologies developed in that time did end up in Windows 95 and Windows NT^[27]). Microsoft was shocked in 2005 by Apple's release of Mac OS X Tiger. It offered only a limited subset of features planned for Longhorn, in particular fast file searching and integrated graphics and sound processing, but appeared to have impressive reliability and performance compared to contemporary Longhorn builds.^[28] Most Longhorn builds had major Explorer.exe system leaks which prevented the OS from performing well, and added more confusion to the development teams in later builds with more and more code being developed which failed to reach stability.

In a September 23, 2005 front-page article in The Wall Street Journal,^[29] Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, who had overall responsibility for the development and delivery of Windows, explained how development of Longhorn had been "crashing into the ground" due in large part to the haphazard methods by which features were introduced and integrated into the core of the operating system, without a clear focus on an end-product. Allchin went on to explain how in December 2003, he enlisted the help of two other senior executives, Brian Valentine and Amitabh Srivastava, the former being experienced with shipping software at Microsoft, most notably Windows Server 2003,^[30] and the latter having spent his career at Microsoft researching and developing methods of producing high-quality testing systems.^[31] Srivastava employed a team of core architects to visually map out the entirety of the Windows operating system, and to proactively work towards a development process that would enforce high levels of code quality, reduce interdependencies between components, and in general, "not make things worse with Vista".^[32] Since Microsoft decided that Longhorn needed to be further componentized, work started on the Omega-13 series builds where they would componentize existing Windows Server 2003 source code, and over time add back functionality as development progressed. Future Longhorn builds would start from Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and continue from there.

This change, announced internally to Microsoft employees on August 26, 2004, began in earnest in September, though it would take several more months before the new development process and build methodology would be used by all of the development teams. A number of complaints came from individual developers, and Bill Gates himself, that the new development process was going to be prohibitively difficult to work within.

As Windows Vista[edit]

By approximately November 2004, the company had considered several names for the final release, ranging from simple to fanciful and inventive. In the end, Microsoft chose Windows Vista as confirmed on July 22, 2005, believing it to be a "wonderful intersection of what the product really does, what Windows stands for, and what resonates with customers, and their needs". Group Project Manager Greg Sullivan told Paul Thurrott "You want the PC to adapt to you and help you cut through the clutter to focus on what's important to you. That's what Windows Vista is all about: "bringing clarity to your world" (a reference to the three marketing points of Vista—Clear, Connected, Confident), so you can focus on what matters to you".^[33] Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin also loved the name, saying that "Vista creates the right imagery for the new product capabilities and inspires the imagination with all the possibilities of what can be done with Windows—making people's passions come alive."^[34]

After Longhorn was named Windows Vista in July 2005, an unprecedented beta-test program was started, involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers and companies. In September of that year, Microsoft started releasing regular Community Technology Previews (CTP) to beta testers from July 2005 to February 2006. The first of these was distributed at the 2005 Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, and was subsequently released to beta testers and Microsoft Developer Network subscribers. The builds that followed incorporated most of the planned features for the final product, as well as a number of changes to the user interface, based largely on feedback from beta testers. Windows Vista was deemed feature-complete with the release of the "February CTP", released on February 22, 2006, and much of the remainder of the work between that build and the final release of the product focused on stability, performance, application and driver compatibility, and documentation. Beta 2, released in late May, was the first build to be made available to the general public through Microsoft's Customer Preview Program. It was downloaded over 5 million times. Two release candidates followed in September and October, both of which were made available to a large number of users.^[35]

At the Intel Developer Forum on March 9, 2006, Microsoft announced a change in their plans to support EFI in Windows Vista. The UEFI 2.0 specification (which replaced EFI 1.10) was not completed until early 2006, and at the time of Microsoft's announcement, no firmware manufacturers had completed a production implementation which could be used for testing. As a result, the decision was made to postpone the introduction of UEFI support to Windows; support for UEFI on 64-bit platforms was postponed until Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 and 32-bit UEFI would not be supported, as Microsoft did not expect many such systems to be built because the market was quickly moving to 64-bit processors.^[36][37]

While Microsoft had originally hoped to have the consumer versions of the operating system available worldwide in time for the 2006 holiday shopping season, it announced in March 2006 that the release date would be pushed back to January 2007 in order to give the company—and the hardware and software companies that Microsoft depends on for providing device drivers—additional time to prepare. Because a release to manufacturing (RTM) build is the final version of code shipped to retailers and other distributors, the purpose of a pre-RTM build is to eliminate any last "show-stopper" bugs that may prevent the code from responsibly being shipped to customers, as well as anything else that consumers may find annoying. Thus, it is unlikely that any major new features would be introduced; instead, work would focus on Vista's fit and finish. In just a few days, developers had managed to drop Vista's bug count from over 2470 on September 22 to just over 1400 by the time RC2 shipped in early October. However, they still had a way to go before Vista was ready to RTM. Microsoft's internal processes required Vista's bug count to drop to 500 or fewer before the product could go into escrow for RTM.^[38] For most of the pre-RTM builds, those 32-bit editions are only released.

On June 14, 2006, Windows developer Philip Su posted a blog entry which decried the development process of Windows Vista, stating that "The code is way too complicated, and that the pace of coding has been tremendously slowed down by overbearing process."^[39] The same post also described Windows Vista as having approximately 50 million lines of code, with about 2,000 developers working on the product. During a demonstration of the speech recognition feature new to Windows Vista at Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting on July 27, 2006, the software recognized the phrase "Dear mom" as "Dear aunt". After several failed attempts to correct the error, the sentence eventually became "Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all".^[40] A developer with Vista's speech recognition team later explained that there was a bug with the build of Vista that was causing the microphone gain level to be set very high, resulting in the audio being received by the speech recognition software being "incredibly distorted".^[41]

Windows Vista build 5824 (October 17, 2006) was supposed to be the RTM release, but a bug, which destroyed any system that was upgraded from Windows XP, prevented this, damaging development and lowering the chance that it would hit its January 2007 deadline.^[42]

Development of Windows Vista came to an end when Microsoft announced that it had been finalized on November 8, 2006, and was concluded by co-president of Windows development, Jim Allchin.^[43] The RTM's build number had also jumped to 6000 to reflect Vista's internal version number, NT 6.0.^[44] Jumping RTM build numbers is common practice among consumer-oriented Windows versions, like Windows 98 (build 1998), Windows 98 SE (build 2222), Windows Me (build 3000) or Windows XP (build 2600), as compared to the business-oriented versions like Windows 2000 (build 2195) or Server 2003 (build 3790). On November 16, 2006, Microsoft made the final build available to MSDN and Technet Plus subscribers.^[45] A business-oriented Enterprise edition was made available to volume license customers on November 30, 2006.^[46] Windows Vista was launched for general customer availability on January 30, 2007.

New or changed features[edit]

Windows Vista introduced several features and functionality not present in its predecessors.

End-user[edit]

• Windows Aero: The new graphical user interface is named Windows Aero, which Jim Allchin stated is an acronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open.^[47] Microsoft intended the new interface to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than those of previous Windows versions, featuring new transparencies, live thumbnails, live icons, and animations, thus providing a new level of eye candy. Laptop users report, however, that enabling Aero shortens battery life^[48][49] and reduces performance.
• Windows shell: The new Windows shell offers a new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities: Task panes in Windows Explorer are removed, integrating the relevant task options into the toolbar. A "Favorite links" pane has been added, enabling one-click access to common directories. A search box appears in every Explorer window. The address bar has been replaced with a breadcrumb navigation bar. Icons of certain file types in Windows Explorer are "live" and can be scaled in size up to 256 × 256 pixels. The preview pane allows users to see thumbnails of various files and view the contents of documents. The details pane shows information such as file size and type, and allows viewing and editing of embedded tags in supported file formats. The Start menu has changed as well; incorporating an instant search box, and the All Programs list uses a horizontal scroll bar instead of the cascading flyout menu seen in Windows XP. The word "Start" itself has been removed in favor of a blue orb that bears the Windows logo.
• Windows Search: A new search component of Windows Vista, it features instant search (also known as search as you type), which provides instant search results, thus finding files more quickly than the search features found in previous versions of Windows and can search the contents of recognized file types.^[50] Users can search for certain metadata such as name, extension, size, date or attributes.
• Windows Sidebar: A transparent panel, anchored to the right side of the screen, wherein a user can place Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose (such as displaying the weather or sports scores). Gadgets can also be placed on the desktop.^[51]
• Windows Internet Explorer 7: New user interface, tabbed browsing, RSS, a search box, improved printing,^[52] Page Zoom, Quick Tabs (thumbnails of all open tabs), Anti-Phishing filter, a number of new security protection features, Internationalized Domain Name support (IDN), and improved web standards support. IE7 in Windows Vista runs in isolation from other applications in the operating system (protected mode); exploits and malicious software are restricted from writing to any location beyond Temporary Internet Files without explicit user consent.
• Windows Media Player 11, a major revamp of Microsoft's program for playing and organizing music and video. New features in this version include word wheeling (incremental search or "search as you type"), a new GUI for the media library, photo display and organization, the ability to share music libraries over a network with other Windows Vista machines, Xbox 360 integration, and support for other Media Center Extenders.
• Windows Defender: An antispyware program with several real-time protection agents. It includes a software explorer feature, which provides access to startup programs, and allows one to view currently running software, network connected applications, and Winsock providers (Winsock LSPs).
• Backup and Restore Center: Includes a backup and restore application that gives users the ability to schedule periodic backups of files on their computer, as well as recovery from previous backups. Backups are incremental, storing only the changes made each time, minimizing disk usage. It also features Complete PC Backup (available only in the Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise editions), which backs up an entire computer as an image onto a hard disk or DVD. Complete PC Backup can automatically recreate a machine setup onto new hardware or hard disk in case of any hardware failures. Complete PC Restore can be initiated from within Windows Vista or from the Windows Vista installation CD in the event that a PC is so corrupt that it cannot start normally from the hard disk.
• Windows Mail: A replacement for Outlook Express that includes a new mail store that improves stability,^[53] and features integrated instant search. It has the Phishing Filter like Internet Explorer 7 and Junk mail filtering that is enhanced through regular updates via Windows Update.^[54]
• Windows Calendar is a new calendar and task application which integrates with Windows Contacts and Windows Mail. It is compatible with various calendar file types, such as the popular iCalendar.
• Windows Photo Gallery, a photo and movie library management application. It can import from digital cameras, tag and rate individual items, adjust colors and exposure, create and display slideshows (with pan and fade effects) through Direct3D and burn slideshows to a DVD.
• Windows DVD Maker, a companion program to Windows Movie Maker that provides the ability to create video DVDs based on a user's content. Users can design a DVD with title, menus, video, soundtrack, pan and zoom motion effects on pictures or slides.
• Windows Media Center, which was previously exclusively bundled in a separate edition of Windows XP, known as Windows XP Media Center Edition, has been incorporated into the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista.
• Games: Most of the standard computer games included in previous versions of Windows have been redesigned to showcase Vista's new graphical capabilities. New games available in Windows Vista are Chess Titans (3D Chess game), Mahjong Titans (3D Mahjong game), and Purble Place (a small collection of games, oriented towards younger children, including a matching game, a cake-creator game, and a dress-up puzzle game). Purble Place is the only one of the new games available in the Windows Vista Home Basic edition. InkBall is available for Home Premium (or better) users.
• Games Explorer: A new special folder called "Games" exposes installed video games and information about them. These metadata may be updated from the Internet.^[55]
• Windows Mobility Center is a control panel that centralizes the most relevant information related to mobile computing (brightness, sound, battery level / power scheme selection, wireless network, screen orientation, presentation settings, etc.).
• Windows Fax and Scan Allows computers with fax modems to send and receive fax documents, as well as scan documents. It is not available in the Home editions of Windows Vista, but is available in the Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions.
• Windows Meeting Space replaces NetMeeting. Users can share applications (or their entire desktop) with other users on the local network, or over the Internet using peer-to-peer technology (higher editions than Starter and Home Basic can take advantage of hosting capabilities, Starter and Home Basic editions are limited to "join" mode only)
• Windows HotStart enables compatible computers to start applications directly from operating system startup or resume by the press of a button—this enables what Microsoft has described as appliance-like availability, which allows computers to function in a manner similar to a consumer electronics device such as a DVD player;^[56] the feature was also designed to provide the instant-on feature availability that is traditionally associated with mobile devices.^[57] While Microsoft has emphasized multimedia scenarios with Windows HotStart,^[58] a user can configure this feature so that a button launches a preferred application.^[59]
• Shadow Copy automatically creates daily backup copies of files and folders. Users can also create "shadow copies" by setting a System Protection Point using the System Protection tab in the System control panel. The user can view multiple versions of a file throughout a limited history and be allowed to restore, delete, or copy those versions. This feature is available only in the Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista and is inherited from Windows Server 2003.^[60]

• Windows Update: Software and security updates have been simplified,^[61] now operating solely via a control panel instead of as a web application. Windows Mail's spam filter and Windows Defender's definitions are updated automatically via Windows Update. Users who choose the recommended setting for Automatic Updates will have the latest drivers installed and available when they add a new device.
• Parental controls: Allows administrators to monitor and restrict user activity, as well as control which websites, programs and games each Standard user can use and install. This feature is not included in the Business or Enterprise editions of Vista.
• Windows SideShow: Enables the auxiliary displays on newer laptops or on supported Windows Mobile devices. It is meant to be used to display device gadgets while the computer is on or off.
• Speech recognition is integrated into Vista.^[62] It features a redesigned user interface and configurable command-and-control commands. Unlike the Office 2003 version, which works only in Office and WordPad, Speech Recognition in Windows Vista works for any accessible application. In addition, it currently supports several languages: British and American English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) and Japanese.
• New fonts, including several designed for screen reading, and improved Chinese (Yahei, JhengHei), Japanese (Meiryo), and Korean (Malgun) fonts. ClearType has also been enhanced and enabled by default.
• Improved audio controls allow the system-wide volume or volume of individual audio devices and even individual applications to be controlled separately. New audio functionalities such as room correction, bass management, speaker fill, and headphone virtualization have also been incorporated.
• Problem Reports and Solutions, a feature that allows users to check for solutions to problems or view previously sent problems for any solutions or additional information, if available.
• Windows System Assessment Tool is a tool used to benchmark system performance. Software such as games can retrieve this rating and modify its own behavior at runtime to improve performance. The benchmark tests CPU, RAM, 2-D and 3-D graphics acceleration, graphics memory and hard disk space.^[63][64]
• Windows Ultimate Extras: The Ultimate edition of Windows Vista provides, via Windows Update, access to some additional features. These are a collection of additional MUI language packs, Texas Hold 'Em (a Poker game) and Microsoft Tinker (a strategy game where the character is a robot), BitLocker and EFS enhancements that allow users to back up their encryption key online in a Digital Locker, and Windows Dreamscene, which enables the use of videos in MPEG and WMV formats as the desktop background. On April 21, 2008, Microsoft launched two more Ultimate Extras; three new Windows sound schemes, and a content pack for Dreamscene. Various DreamScene Content Packs have been released since the final version of DreamScene was released.
• Reliability and Performance Monitor includes various tools for tuning and monitoring system performance and resources activities of CPU, disks, network, memory and other resources. It shows the operations on files, the opened connections, etc.^[65]
• Disk Management: The Logical Disk Manager in Windows Vista supports shrinking and expanding volumes on-the-fly.^[66]
• Windows Anytime Upgrade: is a program that allows a user to upgrade their computer running Vista to a higher edition. For example, a computer running Windows Vista Home Basic can be upgraded to Home Premium or better. Anytime Upgrade permits users to upgrade without having their programs and data erased, and is cheaper than replacing the existing installation of Windows. Anytime Upgrade is no longer available for Vista.^[67]
• Digital Locker Assistant: A program that facilitated access to downloads and purchases from the Windows Marketplacedigital distribution platform.^[68] Apps purchased from Windows Marketplace are managed by Microsoft Account credentials, which are used to access a user's digital locker that stores the app and its associated information (e.g., licenses) off-site.^[69]

Core[edit]

Vista includes technologies such as ReadyBoost^[70] and ReadyDrive, which employ fast flash memory (located on USB flash drives and hybrid hard disk drives) to improve system performance by caching commonly used programs and data. This manifests itself in improved battery life on notebook computers as well, since a hybrid drive can be spun down when not in use.^[71] Another new technology called SuperFetch utilizes machine learning techniques to analyze usage patterns to allow Windows Vista to make intelligent decisions about what content should be present in system memory at any given time. It uses almost all the extra RAM as disk cache.^[72] In conjunction with SuperFetch, an automatic built-in Windows Disk Defragmenter makes sure that those applications are strategically positioned on the hard disk where they can be loaded into memory very quickly with the least amount of physical movement of the hard disk's read-write heads.^[73]

As part of the redesign of the networking architecture, IPv6 has been fully incorporated into the operating system^[74] and a number of performance improvements have been introduced, such as TCP window scaling.^[75] Earlier versions of Windows typically needed third-party wireless networking software to work properly, but this is not the case with Vista, which includes more comprehensive wireless networking support.^[76]

For graphics, Vista introduces a new Windows Display Driver Model^[77] and a major revision to Direct3D. The new driver model facilitates the new Desktop Window Manager, which provides the tearing-free desktop and special effects that are the cornerstones of Windows Aero. Direct3D 10, developed in conjunction with major graphics card manufacturers, is a new architecture with more advanced shader support, and allows the graphics processing unit to render more complex scenes without assistance from the CPU. It features improved load balancing between CPU and GPU and also optimizes data transfer between them.^[78] WDDM also provides video content playback that rivals typical consumer electronics devices. It does this by making it easy to connect to external monitors, providing for protected HD video playback and increasing overall video playback quality. For the first time in Windows, graphics processing unit (GPU) multitasking is possible, enabling users to run more than one GPU-intensive application simultaneously.^[79]

At the core of the operating system, many improvements have been made to the memory manager, process scheduler and I/O scheduler. The Heap Manager implements additional features such as integrity checking in order to improve robustness and defend against buffer overflow security exploits, although this comes at the price of breaking backward compatibility with some legacy applications.^[80] A Kernel Transaction Manager has been implemented that enables applications to work with the file system and Registry using atomic transaction operations.^[81]

Security-related[edit]

Improved security was a primary design goal for Vista.^[8] Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative, which aims to improve public trust in its products, has had a direct effect on its development. This effort has resulted in a number of new security and safety features and an Evaluation Assurance Level rating of 4+.^[82][83]

User Account Control, or UAC is perhaps the most significant and visible of these changes. UAC is a security technology that makes it possible for users to use their computer with fewer privileges by default, with a view to stopping malware from making unauthorized changes to the system. This was often difficult in previous versions of Windows, as the previous "limited" user accounts proved too restrictive and incompatible with a large proportion of application software, and even prevented some basic operations such as looking at the calendar from the notification tray. In Windows Vista, when an action is performed that requires administrative rights (such as installing/uninstalling software or making system-wide configuration changes), the user is first prompted for an administrator name and password; in cases where the user is already an administrator, the user is still prompted to confirm the pending privileged action. Regular use of the computer such as running programs, printing, or surfing the Internet does not trigger UAC prompts. User Account Control asks for credentials in a Secure Desktop mode, in which the entire screen is dimmed, and only the authorization window is active and highlighted. The intent is to stop a malicious program misleading the user by interfering with the authorization window, and to hint to the user the importance of the prompt.^[84]

Testing by Symantec Corporation has proven the effectiveness of UAC. Symantec used over 2,000 active malware samples, consisting of backdoors, keyloggers, rootkits, mass mailers, trojan horses, spyware, adware, and various other samples. Each was executed on a default Windows Vista installation within a standard user account. UAC effectively blocked over 50 percent of each threat, excluding rootkits. 5 percent or less of the malware that evaded UAC survived a reboot.^[85][86]

Internet Explorer 7's new security and safety features include a phishing filter, IDN with anti-spoofing capabilities, and integration with system-wide parental controls. For added security, ActiveX controls are disabled by default. Also, Internet Explorer operates in a protected mode, which operates with lower permissions than the user and runs in isolation from other applications in the operating system, preventing it from accessing or modifying anything besides the Temporary Internet Files directory.^[87] Microsoft's anti-spyware product, Windows Defender, has been incorporated into Windows, providing protection against malware and other threats. Changes to various system configuration settings (such as new auto-starting applications) are blocked unless the user gives consent.

Whereas prior releases of Windows supported per-file encryption using Encrypting File System, the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Vista include BitLocker Drive Encryption, which can protect entire volumes, notably the operating system volume. However, BitLocker requires approximately a 1.5-gigabyte partition to be permanently not encrypted and to contain system files in order for Windows to boot. In normal circumstances, the only time this partition is accessed is when the computer is booting, or when there is a Windows update that changes files in this area, which is a legitimate reason to access this section of the drive. The area can be a potential security issue, because a hexadecimal editor (such as dskprobe.exe), or malicious software running with administrator and/or kernel level privileges would be able to write to this "Ghost Partition" and allow a piece of malicious software to compromise the system, or disable the encryption. BitLocker can work in conjunction with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) cryptoprocessor (version 1.2) embedded in a computer's motherboard, or with a USB key.^[88] However, as with other full disk encryption technologies, BitLocker is vulnerable to a cold boot attack, especially where TPM is used as a key protector without a boot PIN being required too.^[89]

A variety of other privilege-restriction techniques are also built into Vista. An example is the concept of "integrity levels" in user processes, whereby a process with a lower integrity level cannot interact with processes of a higher integrity level and cannot perform DLL–injection to a processes of a higher integrity level. The security restrictions of Windows services are more fine-grained, so that services (especially those listening on the network) have no ability to interact with parts of the operating system they do not need to. Obfuscation techniques such as address space layout randomization are used to increase the amount of effort required of malware before successful infiltration of a system. Code integrity verifies that system binaries have not been tampered with by malicious code.

As part of the redesign of the network stack, Windows Firewall has been upgraded, with new support for filtering both incoming and outgoing traffic. Advanced packet filter rules can be created that can grant or deny communications to specific services.

The 64-bit versions of Vista require that all device drivers be digitally signed, so that the creator of the driver can be identified.^[90]

System management[edit]

While much of the focus of Vista's new capabilities highlighted the new user-interface,^[91] security technologies, and improvements to the core operating system, Microsoft also adding new deployment and maintenance features:

• The Windows Imaging Format (WIM) provides the cornerstone of Microsoft's new deployment and packaging system. WIM files, which contain a HAL-independent image of Windows Vista, can be maintained and patched without having to rebuild new images. Windows Images can be delivered via Systems Management Server or Business Desktop Deployment technologies. Images can be customized and configured with applications then deployed to corporate client personal computers using little to no touch by a system administrator. ImageX is the Microsoft tool used to create and customize images.
• Windows Deployment Services replaces Remote Installation Services for deploying Vista and prior versions of Windows.
• Approximately 700 new Group Policy settings have been added, covering most aspects of the new features in the operating system, as well as significantly expanding the configurability of wireless networks, removable storage devices, and user desktop experience. Vista also introduced an XML-based format (ADMX) to display registry-based policy settings, making it easier to manage networks that span geographic locations and different languages.^[92]
• Services for UNIX, renamed as "Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications", comes with the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Vista. Network File System (NFS) client support is also included.
• Multilingual User Interface–Unlike previous versions of Windows (which required the loading of language packs to provide local-language support), Windows Vista Ultimate and Enterprise editions support the ability to dynamically change languages based on the logged-on user's preference.
• Wireless Projector support

Developer[edit]

Windows Vista includes a large number of new application programming interfaces. Chief among them is the inclusion of version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which consists of a class library and Common Language Runtime and OS/2 environment just like its NT predecessors. Version 3.0 includes four new major components:^[93]

These technologies are also available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 to facilitate their introduction to and usage by developers and end users.

There are also significant new development APIs in the core of the operating system, notably the completely re-designed audio, networking, print, and video interfaces, major changes to the security infrastructure, improvements to the deployment and installation of applications ("ClickOnce" and Windows Installer 4.0), new device driver development model ("Windows Driver Foundation"), Transactional NTFS, mobile computing API advancements (power management, Tablet PC Ink support, SideShow) and major updates to (or complete replacements of) many core subsystems such as Winlogon and CAPI.

There are some issues for software developers using some of the graphics APIs in Vista. Games or programs built solely on the Windows Vista-exclusive version of DirectX, version 10, cannot work on prior versions of Windows, as DirectX 10 is not available for previous Windows versions. Also, games that require the features of D3D9Ex, the updated implementation of DirectX 9 in Windows Vista are also incompatible with previous Windows versions.^[95] According to a Microsoft blog, there are three choices for OpenGL implementation on Vista. An application can use the default implementation, which translates OpenGL calls into the Direct3D API and is frozen at OpenGL version 1.4, or an application can use an Installable Client Driver (ICD), which comes in two flavors: legacy and Vista-compatible. A legacy ICD disables the Desktop Window Manager, a Vista-compatible ICD takes advantage of a new API, and is fully compatible with the Desktop Window Manager.^[96] At least two primary vendors, ATI and NVIDIA provided full Vista-compatible ICDs.^[97] However, hardware overlay is not supported, because it is considered as an obsolete feature in Vista. ATI and NVIDIA strongly recommend using compositing desktop/Framebuffer Objects for same functionality.^[98]

Installation[edit]

Windows Vista is the first Microsoft operating system:

Removed features[edit]

Some notable Windows XP features and components have been replaced or removed in Windows Vista, including several shell and Windows Explorer features, multimedia features, networking related functionality, Windows Messenger, NTBackup, the network Windows Messenger service, HyperTerminal, MSN Explorer, Active Desktop, and the replacement of NetMeeting with Windows Meeting Space. Windows Vista also does not include the Windows XP "Luna" visual theme, or most of the classic color schemes that have been part of Windows since the Windows 3.x era. The "Hardware profiles" startup feature has also been removed, along with support for older motherboard technologies like the EISA bus, APM and game port support (though on the 32-bit version game port support can be enabled by applying an older driver).^[102] IP over FireWire (TCP/IP over IEEE 1394) has been removed as well.^[103] The IPX/SPX protocol has also been removed, although it can be enabled by a third-party plug-in.^[104]

Editions[edit]

Windows Vista shipped in six different editions.^[105]

If you're trying to install AdBlock (or any extension) in Chrome and you see a message like this one: An error has occurred: Download interrupted, it's an issue with Chrome, not the extension. Here are three suggestions. Try them in order, proceeding to the next step only if you're still getting the error.

1. Restart your computer

Just like you, your computer starts getting a little weird if it works for a long time without a break. Yes, this goes for Macs, too.

1. Restart your computer.
2. Reinstall AdBlock.

2. Change where Chrome downloads files

1. Type chrome://settings in the address bar, scroll to the bottom of the Settings page, and click Show advanced settings.
2. Scroll down to Downloads. Click Change and browse to a location you can find easily; say, the Desktop if it's currently set to your Downloads folder, or your Downloads folder if it's currently set somewhere else.
3. Leave checked Ask where to save each file before downloading.
4. Reinstall AdBlock.
   

3. Edit your hosts file

4. Do some basic Chrome troubleshooting.

If all else fails, install AdBlock manually

How to install AdBlock in Chrome when you can't do it the normal way.

5.15.3

• Back-propagated SSH security fixes from PuTTY 0.72:
• SSH private key tools (PuTTYgen and Pageant) upgraded to PuTTY 0.72.
• Using recommended sizes of icons when installed from Microsoft Store. 1754
• XML parser upgraded to Expat 2.2.7.
• Translations updated: Hungarian, Simplified Chinese and Spanish.
• File panel incremental search can be disabled using raw configuration setting. 1742
• Retrying deleting fake temporary folder created when pasting remote files to Windows File Explorer. 1765
• Bug fix: With every start on a monitor with different DPI than the primary monitor, dimensions of the window and some of its components change slightly. 1750
• Bug fix: Speed limit does not work with S3 protocol. 1755
• Bug fix: Site folder loses names of its sites. 1756
• Bug fix: Compare Files extension cannot handle paths with spaces. 1760
• Bug fix: Local recycle bin is unintentionally scanned, slowing down browsing. 1761
• Bug fix: .NET assembly debug log file timestamps shows as GMT, while they are actually local times. 1762
• Bug fix: Cannot upload files over 50 GB to S3. 1764
• Bug fix: When using a local custom command from Synchronization checklist window, opened from a command-line, the connection was closed.
• Bug fix: When saving an edited site or default settings, WinSCP prompted for the master password, even when the site does not have any password to protect.
• Bug fix: When opening a connection from a command-line, which does not have a local directory set yet, local panel is opened empty.

5.15.2

• TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2s.
• SSH private key tools (PuTTYgen and Pageant) upgraded to latest development snapshot of PuTTY (2019-05-13.45be166). It brings the following change:
• Translations updated: Dutch and Polish.
• Not scanning unvisited network folders to speed up start up and browsing. 1737
• Starting main window with the last user local folder instead of always starting in Documents folder. 1740
• When renaming an ad-hoc site, using a generated friendly name as a start.
• Bug fix: Some numerical folders are duplicated in remote directory tree. 1736
• Bug fix: Ad hoc site opened from a workspace showed its internal number a name instead of a friendly generated name.
• Bug fix: Failure in .NET assembly when environment variable is not set and WinSCP executable cannot be found anywhere. 1741
• Bug fix: Keyboard accelerator for Octal box on Properties dialog does not work. 1743
• Bug fix: Failure when .NET assembly times out waiting for WinSCP to start. 1744
• Bug fix: Failure when shutting down Windows. 1746
• Bug fix: Two consecutive different file mask delimiters are processed incorrectly. 1745
• Bug fix: Failure when undocking toolbar on a system with multiple monitors with different DPI. 1748
• Bug fix: Failure after a session lost while in Console dialog is reconnected. 1749

5.15.1

• Bug fix: .NET assembly does not have a strong name. 1730
• Bug fix: Raw transfer settings are incorrectly processed with command. 1731
• Bug fix: Compressed files entries are hard to read in dark theme. 1733
• Bug fix: Cannot drag files from WinRAR. 1735

5.15

• Translations updated: Brazilian Portuguese, Farsi, French, German and Icelandic.
• SSH private key tools (PuTTYgen and Pageant) upgraded to PuTTY 0.71. It brings the following changes:
• Bug fix: Back-propagated SSH security fixes from PuTTY 0.71. 1729vuln-rng-reusevuln-rsa-kex-integer-overflow
• Bug fix: Reloading file in internal editor can cause unwanted upload of partially reloaded file. 1728
• Bug fix: Failure when starting any (local) batch file operation with no session opened.
• Bug fix: Command to create/edit a local shortcut was disabled with no session opened.

5.14.5 RC

• Translations completed: Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, Turkish and Ukrainian.
• TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2r.
• Allowing localization of extension option values in drop down lists.
• Bug fix: Renaming site on Login dialog cannot be committed using key when it was started using Manage > Rename command. 1718
• Bug fix: After canceling a confirmation to install a public key to a non-OpenSSH server, a message about a successful key installation was displayed nevertheless.
• Bug fix: Pressing with combo box focused did not show keyboard accelerators.
• Bug fix: Background transfers queue list font color does not reflect dark theme. 1721
• Bug fix: Directory is not reloaded, when focusing newly created file from Find dialog. 1722
• Bug fix: Local directories with path long between 248 and 259 characters could not be created. 1725
• Bug fix: Failure when dropping down bookmark menu with no session opened. 1726
• Bug fix: Failure when starting GUI. 1727

5.14.4 RC

• Prepared for translations.
• Updated NuGet package description and icon.
• Fixed some typos.

5.14.3 RC

• Suspending workaround 1644 for a bug in Windows 10 version 1803 (April 2018 update), fixed in version 1809 (October 2018 update), that caused drag&drop downloads to Windows File Explorer end in a wrong folder.
• Control labels do not show keyboard accelerator cue, until key is pressed.
• Bug fix: Mouse range selection does not start from the file focused by an incremental search. 1714
• Bug fix: Incremental search in Explorer-selection mode does not select the found file. 1713
• Bug fix: The last file transfer before creating a remote directory during synchronization is not reported with .NET assembly. 1715
• Bug fix: Properties dialog shows “1 file/folder”, instead of a name, even when a single entry was selected only.
• Bug fix: When an ancestor directory cannot be read, its child files and subdirectories are incorrectly assumed to be encrypted. 1716
• Bug fix: Failure when starting GUI. 1717

5.14.2 beta

• Compare Files extensions (obsoletes File Compare custom command).
• Dark theme. 1696
• Coloring files in file panels based on a file mask. 1574
• Improved incremental search in file panels. 1711
• Synchronization preview in .NET assembly. 1371
• Allowed dropping remote files to network drives. 1701
• Synchronization can be started in a new window. 327
• Command to un/check all files in a folder on Synchronization checklist window. 1705
• TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2q.
• command-line switch to configure any transfer settings using a raw format as in an INI file.
• Command-line switch for inspecting and clearing broken COM registrations. 1706
• Optionally failing synchronization in scripting when there are no changes. 1707
• tries to enter even a file. 1704
• Adding “Open Directory/Bookmark” command to bookmark drop down menu.
• Change: Renamed to .
• Showing a progress while executing a local custom command with a set of files.
• Loading (and similar) file icons asynchronously.
• Allowed excluding certain drive letters from monitoring for dropped files.
• Better error message when drop target cannot be detected and drag&drop shell extension is not available.
• Flashing taskbar button, when synchronization checklist window shows with found changed files, while WinSCP is on background.
• Custom font colors history.
• When switching colored sessions, file panels were temporarily drawn using a color of a previous session.
• Not offering name of selected subfolder as a name of new file and not downloading the folder if it by coincidence matches with name of the new file.
• Bug fix: Failure when dropping down bookmark menu while no bookmark is saved. 1697
• Bug fix: Failure when canceling connection attempt. 1698
• Bug fix: With themes disabled, an empty space is reserved for and working as a close button on a session tab even though the button is not drawn. 1699
• Bug fix: GUI freezes while executing an extension with or flags.
• Bug fix: keyboard shortcuts for custom commands and extensions were not working. 1700
• Bug fix: User name edit box on Login dialog in some cases does not include modification commands (like Paste). 1702
• Bug fix: Opening context menu of a file in a local panel locks a parent folder of the file. 1703
• Bug fix: Ampersand () from the last custom command was not shown in menu.
• Bug fix: Remembered private key passphrase is not passed to PuTTY. 1708
• Bug fix: Crash on start while loading local file icons. 1709
• Bug fix: Failure when canceling session reconnect. 1684
• Bug fix: Failure when canceling connection attempt started from command-line. 1710
• Bug fix: It was not possible to access a bucket, if the user does not have permissions to list its root folder. 1712

5.14.1 beta

• Support OpenSSH AES-256-CTR-encrypted keys. PuTTYgen updated to the latest development snapshot of PuTTY (2018-10-22.1806b71). 1692
• Allow connecting to Amazon S3 using non-default endpoints. 1695
• With parallel background transfers, it is not possible to disable size calculation, which effectively prevented parallel transfers from working. 1691
• Low logging level implemented also for S3 and partly for WebDAV protocols. 1637
• Optionally consider exit code 1 an error when executing a shell command on a server. 1694
• Middle mouse click closes session without activating its tab.
• Choosing right color for background of calculated checksum on Properties dialog.
• Bug fix: Failure when closing the main window with a colored session. 1693
• Bug fix: Confirmation of copy&paste transfers between panels was incorrectly controlled by drag&drop confirmation preference option.
• Bug fix: Background transfer settings are not preserved. 1690
• Bug fix: Resolving file move from synchronization checklist, invoked from command-line, closes a connection.
• Bug fix: Generated code included redundant raw settings settings setter for all sessions not using port 22.

5.14 beta

• Files can be optionally encrypted when storing them on SFTP server. 1653
• Local UNC paths can be browsed. 133
• Files can be copied to the clipboard. 316
• Empty directories can be excluded from transfer and synchronization. 207
• Files can be downloaded directly to an external drop location even without a loaded drag&drop shell extension.
• It is always possible to use drag&drop to move remote files to external applications, while copy is always the default operation.
• Improvements to directory synchronization:
  • Synchronization runs on top of Synchronization checklist window for easier overview of the process.
  • Showing overall synchronization progress on progress window and taskbar. 598
  • File/directory rename can be resolved on Synchronization checklist window.
  • Size of directories can be calculated on Synchronization checklist window.
  • Synchronization summary is shown at the end of the operation. 1680
  • Function “Keep remote directory up to date” can be started in a new window.
  • During synchronization transfer speed limit is preserved across set of synchronized directories.
  • Larger default size of Synchronization checklist window on larger screens.
  • Not showing “Operation was successfully completed” when canceling Synchronization Checklist window opened from command-line.
  • Not showing “Operation was successfully completed” message, after command-line synchronization operation, where there were no files to be synchronized.
  • Once Finished option now applies to whole synchronization operation, not only to the current particular synchronization sub-operation.
  • Preventing artifacts on Synchronization checklist window.
  • Bug fix: When synchronization changes preview is turned off, and changes are found, but none of them match synchronization options, no feedback is provided.
• Bookmark drop down menu. 1127
• Added Generate button to SSH > Authentication page of Advanced Site Settings dialog, that starts PuTTYgen and detects a private key file generated by it. 386
• Command to install public key in available both on main window and on Advanced Site Settings dialog. 386
• Close button on session tab. 1393 Using it, a non-active disconnected session can be closed without a need to reconnect it.
• When a path entered in Open Directory dialog or Address toolbar cannot be opened, retry an entry to allow user to correct it. 1673
• Public key can be displayed in Advanced Site Settings dialog.
• Session tab can be renamed. 1183
• Save as Preset command in transfer settings drop down menu. 892
• Improved design of About window.
• Build of .NET assembly that targets .NET Standard 2.0 is provided. 1640
• Change: .NET Assembly now targets .NET Framework 4.0.
• Support for long local paths with FTP protocol. 1337
• PowerShell script that runs WinSCP scripting commands can be generated on Generate Code dialog.
• Transfer settings that do not have a dedicated scripting switch or a .NET property can be set using switch or method.
• Toolbar buttons can be hidden. 582
• Found files can be edited from the Find dialog. 1634
• Hidden files can be excluded from transfer/synchronization. 209
• Session URL can contain any raw session settings using connection parameter. New custom command pattern can generate such URL for use in WinSCP extensions.
• Session name specified by command-line switch is preserved in workspace.
• Time constraints can be set to a start of an interval.
• and time constraint aliases.
• Configuration can be saved to read-only INI file by holding down Shift key while closing WinSCP or submitting Preferences dialog.
• Change: Do not match URL after stripping protocol against stored site name in scripting/automation. 1647
• Configurable keyboard shortcuts for extensions. 1613
• When opening a session in PuTTY, exporting also cached host keys.
• Low logging level. 1637
• It’s possible to limit number of command line parameters used for open-ended switches like , and using syntax .
• Optionally create background queue connection right after session starts (hidden settings). 1681
• Natural order numerical sorting for directory tree. 1685
• XML parser upgraded to Expat 2.2.6.
• Distinguishing multiple sessions opened to the same site by current path. 1635
• Change: Keyboard shortcut for Download command in Explorer interface changed to ( previously).
• Change: Keyboard shortcut for Open Terminal command changed to ( previously).
• Silently ignore errors writing a read-only INI file when automatically saving a workspace when exiting.
• Do not show an error when remembered last used directories do not exist anymore. 1616
• Not failing transfer if file selected for transfer, but excluded by file mask, is deleted during operation. 1677
• Optimized loading time in scripting/.NET assembly mode. 1621
• Installer upgraded to Inno Setup 5.6.1.
• Use remembered private key passphrase in generated script/code. 1688
• Generated code does not include fingerprints of TLS certificates signed by a trusted authority.
• Preventing session tabs flicker with large number of sessions.
• Moving session Color submenu to Session menu.
• Not reloading site list when opening Login dialog/Site menu/etc where there is too many sites. 1658
• Allow authentication with empty passwords in scripting. 1638
• Preventing stall on startup when updating jumplist 1625 or resolving icons of common file types 1649 takes too long.
• is working in file/directory path selection boxes.
• Parsing file modification time from display string if not provided explicitly in SFTP packet. 1665
• Operation status is shown on task bar button and tray icon title also for command-line operations.
• Not showing an estimated time left till the end of an operation for the first few seconds.
• Hidden option to generate WebDAV URLs with protocol prefix. 1668
• Removed (non-working) panel loading animation.
• Workaround for problems when uploading files from symlinked location (such as deduplicated drive). 1355
• History of edit boxes can be deleted using keyboard shortcut. 1686
• Bug fix: Hangs when clicking directory tree while inline editing file name. 1618
• Bug fix: Ad-hoc sessions opened with workspace duplicated into a new window had a wrong name.
• Bug fix: When editing multiple files, opening ends on the first file that is already opened.
• Bug fix: When minimizing command-line operation, task bar button was hidden.
• Bug fix: Hint popup on too long transfer settings panel was truncated on separator () of exclude masks.
• Bug fix: WinSCP instance without main window (opened from command-line) could incorrectly accept session opened from another instance.
• Bug fix: Generated code included property setter for all non-SSH protocols, even when the default port number of a respective protocol was used.
• Bug fix: Prevent SCP server sending files that were not requested. 1675
• Bug fix: Hang when doing an operation on FTP connection that disconnected on a background. 1679
• Bug fix: Failure or delay when .NET assembly timeouts waiting for WinSCP process. 1683
• Bug fix: When dropping files on another session tab, the target path was not set to the working directory of that session.
• Bug fix: Orphaned hidden temporary folders were not being deleted.
• Bug fix: Using in GUI shows an error.
• Bug fix: Sort arrow is not shown on start up.
• Bug fix: When dragging files to other session tabs, drag cursor could change to “Move”, although only “Copy” is possible.
• Bug fix: Remembered passphrase is used as a password in generated script/code. 1687
• Bug fix: Failure when canceling session reconnect. 1684

5.13.9 (hotfix)

• Back-propagated fixes and changes from 5.15 release:
  • SSH private key tools (PuTTYgen and Pageant) upgraded to PuTTY 0.71.
  • Bug fix: Back-propagated SSH security fixes from PuTTY 0.71. 1729vuln-rng-reusevuln-rsa-kex-integer-overflow
  • Bug fix: Reloading file in internal editor can cause unwanted upload of partially reloaded file. 1728

5.13.8 (hotfix)

• Back-propagated fixes from 5.14 beta – 5.14.5 RC releases:
  • TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2r.
  • Bug fix: Prevent SCP server sending files that were not requested. 1675
  • Bug fix: Local directories with path long between 248 and 259 characters could not be created. 1725

5.13.7 (hotfix)

• Translation updated: Simplified Chinese.
• Back-propagated some improvements and fixes from 5.14 – 5.14.3 beta releases:
  • Suspending workaround 1644 for a bug in Windows 10 version 1803 (April 2018 update), fixed in version 1809 (October 2018 update), that caused drag&drop downloads to Windows File Explorer end in a wrong folder.
  • Use remembered private key passphrase in generated script/code. 1688
  • Bug fix: Remembered private key passphrase is not passed to PuTTY. 1708
  • Bug fix: Failure when canceling connection attempt started from command-line. 1710
  • Bug fix: The last file transfer before creating a remote directory during synchronization is not reported with .NET assembly. 1715
  • Bug fix: Failure when starting GUI. 1717

5.13.6 (hotfix)

• Back-propagated some improvements and fixes from 5.14.2 beta release:
  • Bug fix: Failure when canceling session reconnect. 1684
  • Bug fix: Crash on start while loading local file icons. 1709

5.13.5 (hotfix)

• Translations updated: Dutch, Hungarian, Kabyle, Korean, Polish and Spanish.
• Back-propagated some improvements and fixes from 5.14 – 5.14.2 beta releases:
  • TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2q.
  • XML parser upgraded to Expat 2.2.6.
  • Bug fix: Using in GUI shows an error.
  • Bug fix: Sort arrow is not shown on start up.
  • Bug fix: When dragging files to other session tabs, drag cursor could change to “Move”, although only “Copy” is possible.
  • Bug fix: Remembered passphrase is used as a password in generated script/code. 1687
  • Bug fix: Failure when canceling session reconnect. 1684
  • Bug fix: GUI freezes while executing an extension with or flags.
  • Bug fix: keyboard shortcuts for custom commands and extensions were not working. 1700
  • Bug fix: User name edit box on Login dialog in some cases does not include modification commands (like Paste). 1702
  • Bug fix: Opening context menu of a file in a local panel locks a parent folder of the file. 1703

5.13.4

• Passing private key to PuTTY when installed from Microsoft Store. 1654 Passing also other options that PuTTY can accept on its command-line, like “Attempt authentication using Pageant”, “Allow agent forwarding”, “Enable compression”, “SSH protocol version”, “Logical name of remote host” and “Internal protocol version”.
• WinSCP installed from Microsoft Store can be executed from command-line. 1662
• Translation updated: Icelandic.
• With logging level 1 and higher, printing scripting exit debug information on an output too.
• Hidden configuration option to disable running shell operations on a separate thread. 1666
• TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2p.
• Bug fix: When system theme changes, path labels lose their background color.
• Bug fix: File mask is not considered when calculating total file transfer size when deleting original files. 1656
• Bug fix: When canceling connection, mouse cursor sometimes stay “busy”. 1657
• Bug fix: Relative long paths are not handled correctly. 1659
• Bug fix: Error when closing edited/opened files with “Keep temporary copies of remote files in deterministic paths” option enabled. 1660
• Bug fix: It is not possible to open S3 folder from command-line/URL or in scripting when path ends with slash. 1661
• Bug fix: File panel columns do not have a width constraints. 1663
• Bug fix: Update information window layout is broken in some situations. 1664
• Bug fix: Timezone autodetection failed if timestamp of file cannot be retrieved. 1672
• Bug fix: Wrong error message when attempting to rename an S3 folder. 1674

5.13.3

• Generated session URL for opened FTP/WebDAV session over TLS/SSL with invalid certificate includes its fingerprint. 1646
• Generated session URL has colons in TLS/SSL fingerprint unnecessarily URL-encoded. 1645
• Bug fix: It is not possible to delete symlink pointing to a directory with “Follow symbolic links to directories” session settings being on. 1648
• Bug fix: Scripting command does silently nothing when the server does not support creating symlinks, instead of reporting that.
• Bug fix: Error when downloading file to a temporary filename with a long path with SFTP protocol.
• Bug fix: Keywords that link to help page are underlined in generated code on Windows 10 version 1803. 1650
• Bug fix: Start of file drag from remote panel stalls on some systems with floppy drive. 1652
• Bug fix: Path argument in command in generated script has to end with backslash, if it points to a root folder.
• Kabyle translation removed.

5.13.2

• WinSCP is available in Microsoft Store. 1639
• Workaround for a bug in Windows 10 version 1803 (April 2018 Update), causing drag&drop downloads to Windows File Explorer end in a wrong folder (computer restart required). 1644
• Translations completed: Croatian, Farsi and Russian; and updated: Dutch, French, German and Polish.
• Bug fix: URL is handled once for every opened instance of WinSCP too much. 1627
• Bug fix: Icons for local files do not show on some systems. 1628
• Bug fix: Failure when binary file is attempted to be opened in an internal editor on system with multibyte legacy encoding. 1629
• Bug fix: Login dialog opens slowly, when there is a lot of stored sites with a color. 1630
• Bug fix: Extensions were not loaded when configuration is empty.
• Bug fix: Starts slowly on some systems. 1633
• Bug fix: Failure when uploading a file larger than 2GB using S3 protocol. 1636
• Bug fix: Failure when .NET assembly starts reading an XML log file in a short moment when it’s empty yet. 1619

5.13.1

• Translations completed: Kabyle, Traditional Chinese and Ukrainian; and updated: Bahasa Indonesia.
• TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2o.
• Treating a star as an unset permission for compatibility with Win32-OpenSSH.
• Bug fix: parameter with URL was not working for SFTP sessions with enabled fallback to SCP protocol.
• Bug fix: Simple input boxes (like “Edit File” dialog) are broken on multi monitor systems with different DPI. 1614
• Bug fix: HTTP proxy responses for FTP protocol are logged char by char. 1615
• Bug fix: Port number box was visible for S3 protocol, even though its value has no effect.
• Bug fix: Hang when opening a menu with any Paste command, while clipboard contains a large amount of text. 1620
• Bug fix: Slashes in SHA-256 fingerprints are not encoded in generated URLs. 1622
• Bug fix: Failure when closing a session with a local proxy command. 1623
• Bug fix: Failure when closing Find window while finding files. 1624

5.13

• Translations completed: Catalan, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
• Better error message when trying to upload a file to virtual S3 root “folder”.
• Displaying server name in network drive label. 1607
• When using session name as a part of a path to a temporary directory, replace a slash separating a session folder from a session name with a dash instead of . 1608
• Configurable path to XML log file for the .NET assembly. 942
• Bug fix: Failure when opening context menu of edit boxes on Login dialog. 1605
• Bug fix: Failure when processing event. 1606
• Bug fix: It was not possible to open workspace with special characters from a desktop shortcut. 1610
• Bug fix: Failure when focused panel is changed, while double-clicking a file to edit it. 1611

5.12.2 RC

• Multiple levels of directories can be created, while synchronizing browsing to a non existing directory. 1601
• Setting Content Type of files uploaded to S3. 1602
• Configurable mapping from file extension to (using hidden setting). 1604
• Bug fix: Local directory tree cannot be controlled using keyboard. 1599
• Bug fix: keyboard shortcut executed/opened selected file, instead of opening Properties dialog.
• Bug fix: Session hangs when is set while session is already opened. 1600
• Bug fix: is empty.
• Bug fix: Parallel background connections are never started, when queue processing is disabled.
• Bug fix: Panel column context menus were working incorrectly when panel was horizontally scrolled.
• Bug fix: Failure when processing results of upload during synchronization in .NET assembly when a directory was created with explicitly set permissions as the first operation. 1603

5.12.1 beta

• Improvements and changes to .NET assembly and scripting:
  • Custom error handling instead of default abort can be optionally implemented for batch operations in .NET assembly. 1594
  • Change: .NET assembly instance methods , , , , , , and replaced by static methods of the same name in class .
  • Change: has a new mandatory parameter.
  • Bug fix: .NET assembly methods and did not behave correctly when provided a filename without any path.
  • Bug fix: Backtick () and dollar () signs are not escaped in generated PowerShell code. 1590
• Displaying both SHA-256 and MD5 fingerprint of SSH host key on Server and protocol information dialog.
• Choosing right color for background of “selectable” labels.
• All read-only edit boxes/selectable labels have user friendly context menu for copying contents.
• Bug fix: Setting hidden raw session setting for “Configurable priority of host key types” overrides host key.
• Bug fix: Failure when error occurs while another error is already being handled.
• Bug fix: When connection is lost while deleting source remote file during “Download and Delete” operation, downloaded file may be deleted once connection is resumed. 1592
• Bug fix: Hidden session settings to create an S3 bucket in a non-default region was not working.
• Bug fix: It was not possible to work with S3 buckets with a dot in their name. 1597
• Bug fix: S3 temporary redirect was not handled (consequently it was not possible to work with newly created S3 buckets)
• Bug fix: HTTP error was displayed instead of a more specific S3 error message in some situations.
• Bug fix: When viewing stored S3 site with a non-default hostname, the default Amazon S3 hostname was shown instead.
• Bug fix: Failure when updating jumplist. 1591

5.12 beta

• Amazon S3 protocol support. 572
• Bug fix: Stalled connection attempts can be canceled promptly. 1564
• SHA-256 host key fingerprints are used. 1589
• Improvements and changes to .NET assembly and scripting:
  • Remote file duplication in scripting, .NET assembly and XML log.
  • Support for package management in NuGet package. 1581
  • Help for script commands specifies unit for switch.
  • A can be used provide a private key passphrase in .NET assembly via property . 1557
  • Added methods , and methods to .NET assembly.
  • Publishing beta releases of NuGet package. 1598
  • Extensions metadata can span multiple lines.
  • Change: XML log tags and are absent, if their values are not known. Previously they would have value of and respectively. Consequently the .NET assembly and have values and , respectively.
  • File owner and group, if available, are recorded in tag of XML log and consequently .NET assembly method is able to retrieve them.
  • .NET assembly timeout for waiting for WinSCP response is always at least as long as session timeout.
  • Scripting command and .NET assembly function report, when the server does not support file renaming/moving.
  • Masking out passwords in raw settings (proxy and tunnel) when logging command-line. 1578
  • Change: Scripting command and .NET assembly function tests, if a source file exists, before trying to rename. Consequently, an error message reported has changed significantly, if the source file does not exist.
  • Putting to framework subfolder of NuGet package.
• SSH host key can be verified by pasting the expected key or its fingerprint from the clipboard. 1563
• Option to turn off Natural order numerical sorting. 1293
• Wider range of Unicode characters is supported in internal editor. 1580
• XML parser upgraded to Expat 2.2.5.
• Skipping loading of files icons when it takes too long. 1556
• Hidden option to configure priority of host key types. 1562
• custom keyboard shortcuts work on numeric keypad too. 1568
• Allowing download from MVS server using fully qualified dataset name. 1579
• Optionally displaying authentication banner in a monospaced font. 1588
• Bug fix: Per-session default encoding configuration for internal editor. 1577
• Log more information about loading a custom GSSAPI library. 1586
• Commands to copy hostkey/certificate fingerprint to clipboard has a form of a link, instead of a message button.
• Changed appearance of background confirmation options link.
• Logging a complete SSH host key only on Debug log level.
• Change: Last access time of downloaded files is no longer preserved.
• Bug fix: Command-line is disabled even for a local panel, if no session is connected or the connected session does support executing remote commands.
• Bug fix: SSH hostkey/TLS certificate verification prompt in scripting in interactive mode was showing zero timeout.
• Bug fix: Leaving a folder with a large amount of files takes long. 1565
• Bug fix: Timeout of auxiliary requests for Microsoft Passport authentication was not set correctly.
• Bug fix: Operation symbol column on Synchronization checklist does not scale with font size/DPI. 1569
• Bug fix: Cannot enter subfolders of local drive mapped to WebDAV folder. 1575

5.11.3

• TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2n.
• Translations added: Korean; and updated: Bahasa Indonesia, Finnish and Spanish.
• Bug fix: Official extension Generate HTTP URL cannot copy multiple URLs to clipboard. 1567
• Bug fix: Parent directory icon broken on 250% scaling and higher. 1570
• Bug fix: Resizing of Synchronization checklist window does not stop when mouse button is released. 1571
• Bug fix: It was not possible to answer prompts with non-ascii answers in . 1573
• Bug fix: Failure when starting with window position configuration, saved on lower DPI, that does not fit anymore on lower resolution caused by higher DPI. 1576
• Bug fix: Failure when changing remote working directory using directory tree. 1572
• Bug fix: XML log and .NET assembly API does not use an absolute path for source of SCP download.
• Bug fix: WinSCP .NET assembly hangs when the XML log cannot be parsed. 1582
• Bug fix: WinSCP .NET assembly cannot work with files containing control characters. 1583
• Bug fix: Failure when coping local custom command that works with remote files to clipboard.
• Bug fix: Failure when using keyboard shortcut with no session opened. 1585
• Bug fix: When parsing listing, file name was incorrectly tried to be interpreted against various rare path syntaxes, leading to wrong name being displayed. 1587

5.11.2

• Translations added: Russian; and updated: Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian and Spanish.
• Panel font sample on Preferences dialog is wrapped.
• Stopping monitoring a drive when a drive removal is announced, to allow removing the drive (particularly required for VeraCrypt drives). 1560
• Official extension Generate HTTP URL URL-encodes special characters in path.
• Bug fix: Wrong position of an icon on Login button, when Login dialog monitor DPI does not match system DPI. 1555
• Bug fix: Failure when creating local directory or deleting local files, while no session is connected. 1558
• Bug fix: Mouse selection is sometimes incorrectly initiated after inline remote file renaming. 1559

5.11.1

• Bug fix: Connecting through tunnel to IPv6 does not work. 1553
• Bug fix: Failure when using translation on monitor with DPI that does not match system DPI. 1554

5.11

• Translation completed: Norwegian.
• Not closing an application when initial Login dialog is closed without opening session and Keep main window open when the last session is closed is on. 1552

Users upgrading from WinSCP 5.9.6 can read more about WinSCP 5.11 – What’s New?

5.10.4 RC

• Translations completed: Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese and Turkish.
• XML parser upgraded to Expat 2.2.3.
• Preference option Roll log files after reaching renamed to Rotate log files after reaching.
• Bug fix: Hang when showing overwrite confirmation prompt if GUI font has zero-width tab character. 1550

5.10.3 beta

• SSH core and private key tools (PuTTYgen and Pageant) upgraded to PuTTY 0.70. It brings the following change:
  • Fixed yet another instance of Windows DLL hijacking. 1459
• XML parser upgraded to Expat 2.2.2.
• Hidden configuration option for SSH bug Replies to requests on closed channels.
• Do not display error message on start when user documents folder cannot be resolved. 1547
• Bug fix: SSH bug Replies to requests on closed channels was always enabled.
• Bug fix: Clicking root folder in path label opens home folder instead of root folder. 1548
• Bug fix: Unchecking Update subdirectories for Keep remote directory up to date function was not fully working. 1549

5.10.2 beta

• Host keys can be imported from OpenSSH file. 1542
• Cached host keys are unconditionally imported with PuTTY and FileZilla sites.
• Cached host keys can be imported from PuTTY/FileZilla even when using INI file as configuration storage.
• Better error reporting when fails to execute .
• XML parser upgraded to Expat 2.2.1.
• Avoiding a short hang of GUI, when waiting for edited file to be saved.
• On VMS servers, do not use absolute paths with FTP command. 1546
• Bug fix: Site lists stops working when import source is changed on Windows XP.
• Bug fix: Generated code uses instead of . 1543
• Bug fix: Editor font too large on high DPI screens. 1544
• Bug fix: Uploads of saved edited files can rarely stop working. 1545

5.10.1 beta

• Official extension Generate HTTP URL displays a generated URL in a message box.
• Supporting Migrated datasets in IBM z/OS MVS FTP server. 1540
• Bug fix: Copying extension command with flag to clipboard was not working.
• Bug fix: Last download target folder in Explorer interface is not remembered when transferring on background. 1538
• Bug fix: Failure when using parallel background transfers. 1541

5.10 beta

• Background transfer operations can use multiple connections. 875
• Provisional implementation of per-monitor DPI awareness. 1521
• Find dialog is not modal when search finishes and its Focus button does not close the window.
• Found files can be downloaded and deleted on the Find dialog. 1473
• Support Microsoft authentication to allow WebDAV access to Microsoft OneDrive. 1465
• Configurable path to INI file configuration storage.
• Changes to translations:
  • Translations are installed to subfolder.
  • Unless user customizes language, automatically using the best language match each run.
  • Including all translation (30% at least) in installation, but automatically using only those that are complete (80% at least).
  • Marking the default, incomplete and invalid languages in Preferences dialog.
• Improvements to custom commands/extensions:
  • Extension output can be displayed in a message box.
  • Local custom console command output can be copied to clipboard.
  • Uploading back files modified by local custom command applied to a folder. 1526
  • The official extensions can be translated.
  • Consistency in handling errors executing local custom command.
  • Holding down and keys while running a remote custom command copies the command to clipboard instead of executing it.
• Improvements and changes to .NET assembly:
  • Using full path in . 1531
  • Allow cancelling file transfer. 1532
  • Added property to . 1470
  • Masking out passwords and passphrases in .NET assembly output log. 14751488
  • Change: Deprecating .
  • Bug fix: Internal on each call to . 1515
  • Bug fix: Do not invoke when checking for non-existing file with . 1513
• SSH core and private key tools (PuTTYgen and Pageant) upgraded to PuTTY 0.69. It brings the following change:
  • WinSCP should work with MIT Kerberos again, after DLL hijacking defences broke it.
• TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2l.
• Session log file rotation. 18
• It is possible to skip file actually being transferred. 251
• Not indefinitely retrying transfer with FTP protocol when opening transfer channel is failing. 1169
• Handling URL. 1479
• SSH password change.
• Duplication is supported with WebDAV protocol. 1508
• Improved connection time for fast connections.
• Open filter dialog when clicking the current filter in the path display. 1478
• The path display shows temporarily an implicit filter when hovering a mouse over it. 1478
• Importing proxy configuration from FileZilla.
• Do not terminate path with slash in FTP command for better compatibility with VMS systems. 1535
• If there is only a single private key configured in FileZilla, import it with session. 1468
• Added New > File command to the toolbar. 1477
• Cancelling calculation or errors while calculating size of files to upload does not abort the the actual transfer.
• Supporting user/group names in / responses. 1481
• Allowed downloading file using URL even when listing its source directory is not possible. 1480
• Button to open Edit file mask dialog on Select and Filters dialogs. 1534
• Sending header with WebDAV uploads. 1507
• When handling WebDAV file URL, use a display name for target local file. 1486
• Not aborting “Keep remote directory up to date” when Continue on error (or ) is enabled and reading a local directory fails, because it was deleted. 1506
• Not verifying that final path after FTP command matches requested path to allow better compatibility with atypical FTP servers . 1518
• DLL hijacking protection. 1459
• Poll edited file timestamps instead of using change notifications. 1500
• Using WinSCP site name for PuTTY window title. 1482
• Allow using 64-bit version of PuTTY (and its tools), when available. 1522
• Option to open downloaded file on operation completion confirmation when transferring file from command-line/URL. 1524
• Hidden options for Preference order for GSSAPI libraries and User-supplied GSSAPI library path. 578
• in path edit boxes deletes the word before cursor. 1469
• Activating panel, when using file selection commands. 1519
• Displaying tunnel host name on Authentication dialog. 1528
• The SFTP server and Shell edit boxes on the Advanced Site settings dialog use path-style word-breaking.
• Not adding switch to PuTTY arguments, if it is configured already. 1493
• Drop down lists on the Open Directory and Location Profile dialogs are up to 16 entries long.
• Progress window appears on top of Editor window when reloading an edited file.
• Not popping up Authentication window when reconnecting while the application is minimized. 1476
• Hidden session settings for “Logical name of remote host”. 1472
• Prevent slow startup when there are some special folders. 1533
• More readable usage statistics display.
• Update dialog can be displayed by clicking update notification even when the Login dialog is opened.
• Scaling Color button image on Advanced Site Settings dialog.
• While downloading, when an SFTP response does not include timestamps, using known timestamps from directory listing for a local file. 1496
• Improved file transfer logging, including new progress logging.
• Change: Failing on invalid size constraint.
• When opening secondary shell session fails, the main session is not closed.
• Change: When executing script file or script commands provided on command-line, default reconnect time is set to 120 seconds, if not limited yet by configuration.
• Bug fix: The command-line switch was not described in .
• Bug fix: Digits-only file mask constraint was interpreted as time constraint instead of size constraint.
• Bug fix: Sudden disconnect errors during authentication are randomly ignored. 1489
• Bug fix: Queue status was not shown on task bar button, when WinSCP was minimized by clicking on the task bar button.
• Bug fix: Pending background transfers were not considered for progress bar on task bar button.
• Bug fix: Configuring a PuTTY path with unclosed quotes prevents WinSCP from starting. 1499
• Bug fix: Never implemented switch was present in help
• Bug fix: Failure while reloading directory tree after a system colors had changed while the tree was not showing. 1509
• Bug fix: Clean up application data dialog was showing on wrong monitor.
• Bug fix: Resuming file upload in active FTP mode does not work on some servers. 1520
• Bug fix: Failure when INI file cannot be opened. 1523
• Bug fix: Windows logo key is not working in toolbar input boxes. 1527
• Bug fix: Toolbar icons were broken with Windows high contrast themes. 1529
• Bug fix: SFTP transfer stalls when error is received at the same time write buffer needs to be dispatched. 1536
• Bug fix: SFTP upload errors are silently ignored for small files. 1537
• Bug fix: Scripting command without arguments issued irrelevant warning about use of stored site.

5.9.6 (hotfix)

• German translation updated.
• Back-propagated some improvements and fixes from 5.10 – 5.10.2 beta releases:
  • SSH core and private key tools (PuTTYgen and Pageant) upgraded to PuTTY 0.69. It brings the following change:
    • WinSCP should work with MIT Kerberos again, after DLL hijacking defences broke it.
  • TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2l.
  • Allow using 64-bit version of PuTTY (and its tools), when available. 1522
  • XML parser upgraded to Expat 2.2.1.
  • Bug fix: Scripting command without arguments issued irrelevant warning about use of stored site.
  • Bug fix: Generated code uses instead of . 1543

5.9.5

• SSH core and private key tools (PuTTYgen and Pageant) upgraded to PuTTY 0.68. It brings the following change:
• Translation completed: Traditional Chinese.
• Translation updated: Icelandic.
• De-duplicating Duplicate Session and Disconnect accelerators in Session menu. 1512
• De-duplicating Quit and Queue accelerators in Commands menu. 1516
• Increased length limit of host name. 1517
• Bug fix: Failure when reloading non-current directory expanded in remote directory tree. 1514
• Bug fix: Failure when moving Download and Delete operation to background. 1462

5.9.4

• Translation completed: Portuguese.
• Allowed setting debug logging level to 2 in .NET assembly. 1487
• TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2k.
• All files are included in private key files filter.
• Bug fix: Cannot use unencrypted client certificate file (/ format). 1490
• Bug fix: Installer started by unprivileged user shows warning about an incomplete translation again after elevation to administrator privileges. 1492
• Bug fix: Installation fails when started by a non-privileged user on a system, where elevating to administrator privileges is disabled. 1491
• Bug fix: Colored session icon does not display on high DPI. 1494
• Bug fix: WinSCP .NET assembly fails when finding WinSCP executable in its installation folder. 1495
• Bug fix: Moving Login dialog moves main window disproportionally on some systems. 1497
• Bug fix: Remembered password is not used for reconnects. 1498
• Bug fix: Keep local directory up to date extension failed, when local directory was initially empty and Delete files option was enabled. 1503
• Bug fix: Wrong message when setting property to an invalid value. 1504
• Bug fix: Panel loses focus after a transfer initiated using key or double-click. 1505
• Bug fix: Failure when using Generate Code command on Upload dialog opened by command-line parameter. 1510
• Bug fix: Some multibyte ANSI-encoded files are incorrectly loaded into an Internal editor. 1511

5.9.3

• Translation completed: Croatian.
• Support for non-ASCII passphrases to client certificate files (/ format). 1461
• TLS/SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.2j.
• Improvements to custom commands/extensions:
  • New official extensions “Generate HTTP URL” 417 and “Batch Rename”.
  • The official extensions are compatible with PowerShell 2.0.
  • The official extension “Find Duplicates” re-implemented using the and the .
  • Site-specific extension options.
  • Increased length limit for custom command and console. 1466
  • Allowing tabs in addition to spaces in extension file. 1467
  • Specific error messages about extensions are presented without irrelevant HTTP status code.
  • Bug fix: Tab order on extension options dialog was broken, if the extension mixed options in and out of group box.
• Progress windows can be controlled using keyboard again. 1471
• Scaling combo box drop down menu.
• Change: Not updating last access time of uploaded files with SFTP protocol to avoid problems with servers that do not support it. 1485
• Bug fix: Found folders were focusing incorrectly.
• Bug fix: Command-line toolbar command can be executed while another command was executing already.
• Bug fix: Wrong layout of Login dialog on monitors with low vertical resolution. 1463
• Bug fix: instance could not be reused for multiple calls. 1464
• Bug fix: Custom commands submenu with the other custom command type was not disabled when there was no such custom command.
• Bug fix: It was possible to load again the first extension in an extension folder.
• Bug fix: Failure when logging fails for background session or during log in. 1483
• Bug fix: Failure when pressing Calculate button on Properties dialog, while another calculation is already in progress. 1484

5.9.2

• Translations completed: Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish, Kabyle and Ukrainian.
• Moving main window with Login dialog. 1455
• Expanding patterns in default value of extension options. 1456
• Paste command in panels context menu. 422
• When upgrading the drag&drop shell extension, silently postpone replacement until the next system restart, unless the new extension is incompatible. 1458
• XML parser upgraded to Expat 2.2.0.
• Not showing password in full