Windows Vista and Whisker

Special considerations apply to Windows Vista, as follows.

INSTALLATION

Ensure you run the installer as an administrator (or it will be unable to intsall to \Program Files).

ALLOWING WHISKER THROUGH THE WINDOWS FIREWALL

When you run WhiskerServer, for the first time, you will see the following message:

       Windows Security Alert

       Windows Firewall has blocked some features of this program

       ---------------

       Windows Firewall has blocked this program from accepting incoming network connections. If you

       unblock this program, it will be unblocked on all private networks that you connect to. What are

       the risks of unblocking a program?

       Name:                                WhiskerServer

       Publisher:                        Unknown

       Path:                                C:\Program Files\WhiskerControl\WhiskerServer.exe

       Network location:        Private network

Choose "Unblock" (rather than "Keep blocking").

If you get this wrong the first time, you can redo this using:

       Start > Settings > Control Panel > Windows Firewall > Allow a program through Windows Firewall.

You can then choose either "Add program" (and select whiskerserver.exe, usually in C:\Program Files\WhiskerControl) or "Add port" (and choose port 3233 of type TCP, giving it an appropriate name such as "Whisker main port").

Explanation: WhiskerServer is a server program that must accept network connections to it, on port 3233 and other ephemeral ports. You do not have to let other computers have access to it, but you must at least allow clients on the same computer to have access.

CHANGES TO DEFAULT NETWORK BEHAVIOUR: INTERNET PROTOCOL VERSION 6

Note that Windows Vista by default accepts "localhost" to mean "this computer" for network connections. The old "loopback" is not accepted. Furthermore, Windows Vista runs IPv6. By default, "localhost" refers to the IPv6 local address of ::1, rather than the older IPv4 local address of 127.0.0.1. (This behaviour is all configurable by editing C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts if you wish to do so.)

As of January 2009, Whisker clients supplied via www.whiskercontrol.com default to "localhost". If you are using an older client, simply enter "localhost" or "127.0.0.1" instead of the old "loopback".

FEATURES OF WHISKERSERVER THAT REQUIRE IT TO RUN WITH ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES

If you do not run WhiskerServer.exe as an administrator, Windows refuses to let it run as a real-time process; Windows silently fails (i.e. doesn't tell WhiskerServer that it won't allow this) and changes the real-time request to "High". Furthermore, it is unable to write to the hardware configuration section of the registry (see Whisker's use of the registry). Therefore, WhiskerServer should be run with administrator privileges.

To configure WhiskerServer to run as an administrator, this is the easiest way:

Windows will say:

       Access denied

       You will need to provide administrator privileges to changes these settings.

       Click continue to complete this operation

Click "Continue". Windows will say:

       User Account Control

       Windows needs your permission to continue

       If you started the action, continue.

       Save Shortcut Properties

       Microsoft Windows

Click "Continue".

Now the usual WhiskerServer menu shortcut (and the Ctrl-Alt-S keyboard shortcut) will run WhiskerServer as an administrator. However, whenever you do this, a message will pop up saying:

       User Account Control

       An unidentified program wants access to your computer

       Don't run the program unless you know where it's from or you've used it before.

       WhiskerServer.exe

       Unidentified Publisher

       > Cancel - I don't know where the program is from or what it's for.

       > Allow - I trust the program. I know where it's from or I've used it before.

Click "Allow" or press Alt-A.

So your quickest shortcut to starting WhiskerServer is now Ctrl-Alt-S, Alt-A.