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News Release

X-Win32 v8 Offers Quantum Leap Improvements in X Windows Connectivity

New code base offers unprecedented speed and stability

Design Automation Conference - San Francisco, July 24, 2006 – Designed to take access to remote X Windows applications to a new level of performance and productivity, StarNet Communications of Sunnyvale (California) announces the release of X-Win32 Version 8. This next-generation PC X server offers leading edge performance and stability when running applications on remote Linux and Unix servers from the Windows desktop.

Version 8 is debuted and shown in booth# 1214 at the Design Automation Conference (DAC 2006) in San Francisco (July 24-27).

Version 8 is optimized for Windows 2000, XP and Vista. "Version 8 represents a quantum leap improvement in PC X server performance, functionality, ease of use and stability," said StarNet co-founder and CEO Steven Schoch. "With Version 8, customers obtain the best tool available for connecting from Windows to Unix and Linux, whether on a LAN or over the Internet. With the highest performance of any PC X server and a low license cost, Version 8 offers the best value in the PC X server market.

Key among the many improvements in Version 8 is a new code base that offers unprecedented performance improvements over current generation technology. Combined with a new high-speed Window Manager, users can manipulate multiple X Windows applications running on remote Linux and UNIX servers as smoothly as if the applications were running locally on their Windows computers.

"The new code base takes the use of X Windows on Windows computers to a new level of productivity. Many of the performance and window manager quirks experienced by PC X server users around the world, no matter what PC X server they use, are resolved in Version 8," Schoch added.

In addition to StarNet's engineering department, several of the world's leading authorities on X Windows technology contributed to the development of version 8. "We assembled a team of engineers with tremendous knowledge and expertise in X Windows and related technologies. This enabled us to take a radically new approach in developing a code base for this PC X server. As a result, our customers will enjoy performance, stability and productivity benefits no other PC X server offers," Schoch said.

Among the many improvements in Version 8 are:

• Performance Improvements: X-Win32 is more usable on slow network connections and blazingly fast on LANs while reducing the amount of network bandwidth consumed by the X11 graphics drawing operations. This is most obvious when minimizing and restoring windows in "multiple window mode"; dragging another window on top of an X-Win32 window; alt-tabbing between different applications; moving an X-Win32 window, which is now instantaneous; and closing menus in X-Win32 windows.
• IPv6: Internet Protocol version 6 is now supported.
• StarNetSSH Sessions now offer greatly improved stability over previous means of connecting Windows and Unix/Linux hosts over an encrypted tunnel.
• StarNetSSH now offers improved support for Kerberos. Besides standard MIT-based Kerberos, version 8 supports Keyboard Interactive (SSH2) and Challenge Response (SSH1) authentication mechanisms - for both password authentication (and for changing your password), as well as secure key authentication systems.
• Languages: X-Win32 now supports a record 29 languages: Afrikaans, Arabic, Chinese - Simplified, Chinese - Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
• XDMCP Broadcast sessions now start only in Single Window Mode, eliminating the problems users experienced when accidentally starting XDMCP in Multiple Window Mode.
• The new RENDER extension has been added which provides smooth graphics and text for remote applications that support it.
• Improved keyboard support with the addition of the XKEYBOARD extension. And Version 8 has automatic keyboard detection for all non-US-English keyboards, eliminating the need for customers to manually configure their keyboards.
• Screen Shot Capturing. X-Win32 can now easily copy both text and graphics with a Screen Capture tool that works for both X11 and Windows applications. Users can capture a portion of an X window, the entire window or the entire screen and copy the images to Windows applications, or save them as PNG files.
• Version 8 uses an XML-based X-Config session configuration tool that makes it easy to edit sessions and save them to files. Past versions used the problematic system registry.
• Completely new user interface. All throughout Version 8, graphics icons and other images help the user understand what is going on in making connections to remote hosts and to help them configure their sessions.

Cost & Trial Version

X-Win32 lists at US$225.00 in single license quantity. Volume discounts are available for commercial, government and educational users. A free trial license will be issued when a trial version of X-Win32 Version 8 is downloaded.

About StarNet Communications

StarNet Communications Corp., founded in 1989, develops and markets X11 solutions on the Windows platform for corporate, educational and government organizations. StarNet's family of X-Win32 PC X server products offers cost-effective, best-of-breed X terminal emulation solutions. Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., the company is privately held. For more information, visit www.starnet.com

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