Creating a customised Windows MSI installer for RealVNC Server

While in most cases we recommend that you configure RealVNC Server separately to installing it, for example by using Group Policy, there may be scenarios where you want to include parameters as part of the RealVNC Server installer. This can be achieved by following the below steps.

1. To create a customised installer on Windows, you will need to download the MSI installers for RealVNC Server and Microsoft's Orca tool.
   • The MSI installers for RealVNC Server are available for download from the RealVNC website.
   • Orca is available from Microsoft as part of the Windows SDK. Once you have downloaded and installed the Windows SDK, you can copy the Orca.msi installer file to another location for future use.
2. Extract the RealVNC Server MSI installers from the compressed folder and make a note of their location.
3. Once you have installed Orca, launch it from your Start Menu.
4. Click Tools on the top menu, then click Options.
   
   
   
   
5. Click the Database tab, and place a check mark in the checkbox to enable "Copy embedded streams during 'Save As'", then click OK.
   
   
   
   
6. Click the Open button in the top left.
   
   
   
   
7. Navigate to where you saved the MSI installers in step 2, and select the MSI installer you want to customise, then click Open.
   Note that there are separate MSI installers for 32bit and 64bit versions of Windows.
   
   
   
   

8. Click Registry on the list of tables on the left.
   
   
   
   

9. Right click in the right hand pane and click Add Row.
   
   
   
   

10. The values to complete depend on the setting you want to change, for example to change the port that RealVNC Server uses for direct connections you would use the below values:
    To enforce the value via policy:
    Registry: RfbPort
    Root: 2
    Key: Software\Policies\RealVNC\vncserver
    Name: RfbPort
    Value: 5901
    Component_: ComponentServer
    
    To set the value as a default:
    Registry: RfbPort
    Root: 2
    Key: Software\RealVNC\vncserver
    Name: RfbPort
    Value: 5901
    Component_: ComponentServer

    For other settings, change the Registry, Name and Value values as appropriate. Please refer to RealVNC Server Parameter Reference.
    
    The Root value will always be 2, which is defined by Microsoft and adds the configured values to HKLM_LOCAL_MACHINE in the Registry, which is where RealVNC Server reads its configuration from.
    
    
11. Repeat step 10 for each parameter that you want to set.
12. Once you have added all of the rows/settings click File, Save As, to generate an MSI that will include your parameters upon install.