Until not long ago it was possible to select between client or server at setup time. We decided to skip this because we want NoMachine to attract a much wider audience than the traditional Linux remote desktop user. Most people are not used to the fact you can separate a program in “client” and “server”. When people install Skype, they expect to be able to both place and receive calls with a single program. Not always things are obvious. Recently I’ve seen a review at Download.com where a user gave NoMachine 1 star (screwing our score forever 😉 ) because we didn’t explain better that he had to install NoMachine on TWO computers to let these computers communicate each other. Of course the user was right.
There are number of things we plan to work on:
– Make easier to shutdown the server forever in one click.
We made the mock-ups already, albeit I don’t know the status of development. This would make most users interested only in the client happy.
– Make possible to install only the client.
Maybe there is a command line options already (there are to make “silent” and “very silent” automated installations). If there is not, expect this option to become available soon.
– Make possible to install the client without admin privileges.
This is easy too. The only thing for which the client needs admin rights is to install some device redirection drivers. No drivers, no redirection, but no loss of functionality beyond that.
– Make possible to install the server without admin privileges.
This is a bit more complicated because the server was born as an “enterprise” solution, so it is a bit overloaded compared to the needs of a single-user program. The idea is to build a single-user server in the player. In the 4 we made huge steps to streamline everything and now this goal is not too far away.
– Create an install-less client (and server).
The idea is to make easy creating a USB image including players for all the supported platforms, so that people can run the client from there. I don’t know where we are, but AFAIR I have seen some prototypes working. Making a “portable client” is one of the most requested features.