Name
Xming - X Server for Microsoft Windows
Synopsis
Xming [:display-number] [option ...]
Description
Xming is an X Server running on Microsoft Windows.
Modes
Xming can operate in five different and incompatible modes:
* one window: This is the default option. The X server appears as a
single Microsoft Windows window and all X windows are contained within
that window. This mode requires an external Windows window manager.
Typically this mode would be used for XDMCP login to a remote machine
using its DM (X Display Manager e.g. KDE, Gnome or just XDM) instead of
a local window manager running on Microsoft Windows.
* nodecoration or [-nodecoration]: This mode is like one window mode
except that the X server window does not have a titlebar or border,
thus maximizing the amount of space available for X windows within the
X server window. This mode requires an external window manager.
* fullscreen or [-fullscreen]: This mode is like one window mode except
that the X server window takes the full screen, covering completely the
Microsoft Windows desktop. This mode requires an external window man-
ager. Can be used with -depth 8 for old 8-bit colour clients.
* rootless or [-rootless]: The X server works on a window covering the
whole screen but the root window (traditionally covered with an X hatch
pattern) is hidden from view. This mode requires an external window
manager.
* multiwindow or [-multiwindow]: In this mode Xming uses its own inte-
grated window manager in order to handle the top-level X windows, in
such a way that they appear as normal Microsoft Windows windows. This
is the recommended option to use.
NOTE: -multiwindow mode will crash if an external window manager such
as openbox or xwinwm is launched since -multiwindow uses its own inter-
nal window manager; all other modes require an external window manager
in order to move, resize, and perform other operations on the individ-
ual X windows. Suitable external window managers are twm, openbox and
xwinwm (twm is in Xming tools and clients, with the other two available
from Cygwin/X). When using XDMCP a Microsoft Windows window manager is
not required as the remote Display Manager (DM) performs that task.
Press Alt-F4 to shutdown Xming. See the -[no]winkill and -[no]unixkill
options to change this default. Also Xming has Exit selectable on its
tray icon menu.
Log
As it runs Xming writes messages indicating the most relevant events to
a log file that by default is Xming.n.log, where n is the display-num-
ber of the X server. This file is mainly for debugging purposes. You
may also just get an Xming.log file from a total failure early in server
startup.
Preferences File
On startup Xming looks for the file Xmingrc in the %HOME% or the
install directory. Xmingrc allows setting preferences for the follow-
ing:
1- To include items into the menu associated with the Xming icon which
is in the Microsoft Windows system tray. This functions in all modes
that have a tray icon.
2- To include items in the menu which is associated with the Microsoft
Windows window that -multiwindow produces for each top-level X Window.
That can be done both for the generic case and for particular programs.
3- To change the icon that is associated to the Microsoft Windows win-
dow that -multiwindow produces for each top-level X Window. Again,
that can be done both for the generic case and for particular programs.
4- To change the style that is associated with the Microsoft Windows
window that -multiwindow produces for each top-level X Window. Again,
that can be done both for the generic case and for particular programs.
The format of the Xmingrc file is given in its manual page.
Options
All normal server options are shown using -help.
The following command line switches are Xming specific, all of which
are optional:
-clipboard
Enables the integration between the Xming clipboard and
Microsoft Windows clipboard.
-clipupdates num_boxes
Specify an optional threshold, above which the boxes in a
shadow update operation will be collected into a GDI clipping
region. The clipping region is then used to do a single bit
block transfer that is constrained to the updated area by the
clipping region. There is some overhead involved in creating,
installing, destroying, and removing the clipping region, thus
there may not be much benefit for a small number of boxes (less
than 10). Diminished effect on current windows versions
because they already group GDI operations together in a batch,
which has a similar effect. This parameter works in conjunc-
tion with engines 1, 2, and 4 (Shadow GDI, Shadow DirectDraw,
and Shadow DirectDraw Non-Locking, respectively).
-depth depth
Specify the colour depth, in bits per pixel, to use when run-
ning in -fullscreen with a DirectDraw engine. This parameter
is ignored if -fullscreen is not specified.
-emulate3buttons timeout
Emulate a three button mouse; pressing both buttons within
timeout milliseconds causes an emulated middle button press.
The default timeout is 50 milliseconds. Note that most mice
with scroll wheel have middle button functionality, usually you
will need this option only if you have a two button mouse with-
out scroll wheel.
-engine engine_type_id
This option, which is intended for Xming developers, overrides
the server's automatically supported engine type. This parame-
ter will be ignored if the specified engine type is not sup-
ported on the current system. The supported engine type ids
are 1 - Shadow GDI, 2 - Shadow DirectDraw, and 4 - Shadow
DirectDraw4. Additionally, there is a barely functional exper-
imental engine type id 16 - Native GDI.
-fullscreen [-depth depth] [-refresh rate_in_Hz]
Run the server in -fullscreen mode, as opposed to the default
windowed mode.
-help Write help text to the log file and a popup notepad window.
-ignoreinput
Ignore keyboard and mouse input. This is usually only used for
testing and debugging purposes.
-internalwm
EXPERIMENTAL: Run the internal window manager.
-[no]keyhook
Enable [disable] a low-level keyboard hook for catching special
key combinations like Alt+Tab and passing them to the X Server
instead of letting Microsoft Windows handle them.
-lesspointer
Hide the Microsoft Windows mouse cursor when the mouse is over
any Xming window (regardless of whether that window is active
or inactive). This prevents the Microsoft Windows mouse cursor
from being placed over the X cursor.
-logfile File_Name
Change the log file from the default, Xming.n.log, to the one
indicated by File_Name.
-logverbose level
Control the degree of verbosity of the log messages with the
integer parameter level. For level=0 only fatal errors are
reported, for level=1 (default) simple information about con-
figuration is also given, for level=2 a detailed log informa-
tion (including trace and debug output) is produced. Bigger
values will yield a still more detailed debug output. Not many
messages respect this setting and the default value is 2.
-multimonitors (or -multiplemonitors)
Create a root window that covers all monitors on a system with
multiple monitors.
-multiwindow
Start the integrated Microsoft Windows-based window manager,
which launches each top-level X Window in its own Microsoft
Windows window. Not to be used together with -rootless or
-fullscreen.
-mwextwm
EXPERIMENTAL: Run the server in multiwindow external window
manager mode. Use with xwinwm.
-nodecoration
Do not give the Xming window a Microsoft Windows window border,
titlebar, etc. This parameter only applies to windowed mode
screens, i.e., this parameter is ignored when the -fullscreen
parameter is specified.
-nounicodeclipboard
Disable Unicode in the clipboard.
-refresh rate_in_Hz
Specify an optional refresh rate to use when running in
-fullscreen with a DirectDraw engine. This parameter is
ignored if -fullscreen is not specified.
-rootless
Run the server in -rootless mode. Not to be used with -multi-
window or with -fullscreen.
-screen scr_num width height
This parameter can be used to specify the scr_num, height, and
width of one or several Xming screens; each Xming screen will
be opened in its own window. When using multiple screens, be
sure not to duplicate any screen numbers. Xming default behav-
iour is to create a single screen that is roughly the size of
the current Microsoft Windows display area. Screen specific
parameters, such as -fullscreen, can be applied as a default to
all screens by placing those screen specific parameters before
any -screen parameter. Screen specific parameters placed after
the first -screen parameter will apply only to the immediately
preceeding -screen parameter.
-scrollbars
In windowed mode, allow screens bigger than the Microsoft Win-
dows desktop. Moreover, if the window has decorations, you can
now resize it.
-silent-dup-error
If another instance of Xming, with the same display-number, is
found: exit silently and don't display the error message.
-swcursor
Disable the usage of the windows cursor and use the X11 soft-
ware cursor instead.
-[no]trayicon
Do not create a tray icon. Default is to create one icon per
screen. You can globally disable tray icons with -notrayicon,
then enable it for specific screens with -trayicon for those
screens.
-[no]unixkill
Enable or disable the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace key combination as a
signal to exit the X Server. The Ctrl-Alt-Backspace key combi-
nation is disabled by default.
-version
Write version and help text to the log file and a popup notepad
window.
-[no]winkill
Enable or disable the Alt-F4 key combination as a signal to
exit the X Server. The Alt-F4 key combination is enabled by
default.
-xkblayout layout
-xkbmodel model
-xkboptions option
-xkbrules rule
-xkbvariant variant
These xkb options implement the xkeyboard extension for loading
a particular keyboard map as the X server starts. The behaviour
is similar to the setxkbmap program. The layout data is
located at xkb. Additional information is found in the README
files therein. For example in order to load a German layout
for a pc105 keyboard use the options:
-xkblayout de -xkbmodel pc105
Alternatively you can use the setxkbmap program after Xming is
running or even the xmodmap program for loading the old-style
keyboard maps.
Bugs
Xming and this manual page still have many limitations. Some of the
more obvious ones are:
- The display mode can not be changed once the X server has started.
- The Xming software is developing rapidly; it is therefore likely that
this manual page is not up-to-date.
Authors
This list is by no means complete, but direct contributors to the Xming
and Cygwin/X projects include (in alphabetical order by last name):
Stuart Adamson, Michael Bax, Jehan Bing, Lev Bishop, Dr. Peter Busch,
Biju G C, Robert Collins, Nick Crabtree, Early Ehlinger, Christopher
Faylor, John Fortin, Brian Genisio, Fabrizio Gennari, Alexander
Gottwald, Ralf Habacker, Colin Harrison, Matthieu Herrb, Alan Houri-
hane, Pierre A Humblet, Harold L Hunt II, Dakshinamurthy Karra, Kensuke
Matsuzaki, Takuma Murakami, Earle F. Philhower III, Benjamin Riefen-
stahl, Suhaib Siddiqi, Jack Tanner, and Nicholas Wourms.
Table of Contents
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