Dear mIRC User,

mIRC version 6.21 has been released today.

With this release we hope to address the most important comments, requests and remarks we received after the release of version 6.2. The new version fixes quite a few small bugs found in the previous version. We tried to focus on fixing things, making the mIRC 6 series more and more sturdy, but quite a few new features and functions have been added.

How to upgrade?
As you know mIRC is distributed in a self-extracting cabinet (mirc621.exe) that helps you to install mIRC on your PC. Simply download the cabinet and run the installer. Follow the instructions the installer program gives to you. When upgrading all your old settings and scripts will stay as they were, if you want that. Read the questions the installer program asks with care and nothing can go wrong. You will be chatting with the new mIRC in no time. If you get stuck or if you want to find out more about a certain feature, just click on a Help button or browse the Help file and you should find lots of hints to help you out. We also give some information on changed, improved and fixed features and functions below.

Where to download?
For the latest download addresses look on the download page on the mIRC websites. On the mIRC websites also the new mIRC FAQ is available. The FAQ answers a lot of questions regarding mIRC, IRC, DCC and the like. It also includes a tutorial on Aliases, Popups and on 'programming' the Tools/Remote section.

Registering mIRC
As you know, mIRC can be downloaded freely and evaluated for 30 days. If you find that you enjoy using mIRC, it would be great and much appreciated if you registered your copy. This licenses you to keep your copy of mIRC and helps to support our continued work on mIRC. You can find out how to register here.

Fixes, improvements and new features.
As always this new version of mIRC addresses many of the issues reported since the last release. A lot of time was spent tweaking features and fixing bugs. Khaled worked on the installer, logfile handling, script error handling, as well as a handful of other things. Only a few new features and functions have been added, making this mainly a bugfix release.

The mIRC installer has improved a lot! The installer now offers several pre-defined modes that allow you to choose between an Upgrade, Full or Custom install. It ensures that backups of old files are successful, reports error and aborts the installation if it failed for some reason.

The IRC Servers dialog now uses a treeview to display the servers list. In response to this change the format of the servers.ini file has changed to accomodate for a larger amount of servers. The DNS routines have changed so that on connect the retrieved pool of IP addresses is randomised to spread the load across connections.

Preparing for a fully Vista (the new Windows) compliant version of mIRC several changes have been made. These incluse minor cosmetic issues, icons, a new help file in .chm format, etc. Also a command line option has been created that makes mIRC avoid all use of the registry. If this switch is used, mIRC stores registry information in the mirc.ini file in a user section, and does not modify registry to support irc:// links etc. This comes handy when you want to run mIRC from a memory stick or similar device.

A lot of changes have been made to the way mIRC names and stores logfiles. This is mainly done to prevent file corruption and loss of data when you open multiple server connections. mIRC tries to name and rename logfiles as smart as possible. Also, when settings are changed in the logging dialog, the logging state of windows and any open log filenames are now immediately updated to reflect the new settings. In previous versions new settings were only applied when a new window was created.

We hope to have smashed the confusing 'flash' and 'beep' options by adding a "Default" menu item to System Menu Flash/Beep items, allowing channel/query/chat windows to use the default settings as set in the Options/Sounds dialog. And disabling sounds in the Sounds dialog now does actually disable -all- sounds, even those using /splay or /beep. ;-)

For experienced users and scripting enthousiasts this new version has heaps of fixes, changes and other little thingies to play with. Some of the more useful changes for scripters are: an extension to the /toolbar command that allows you to customize your toolbar, it now has a new switch that makes mIRC remember your current toolbar settings and reload them automatically the next time you run mIRC; the /window -h behaviour has been fixed so that you can hide Status windows from the switchbar; the on WAVEEND event now triggers as it should; Regular expression support has been improved and resolves gpf and speed issues in the previous version; script $error handling should work better now; and /drawrot is now much faster.

In total there have been over 80 changes in this version and although most of them are bug fixes or small tweaks, we hope that they result in a more useful and stable mIRC for you.

Please read the help file in mIRC and the whatsnew.txt on the website to learn about the complete list of changes and their impact. Some changes are obvious, some need getting used to - please take your time to play with them and see how they work. May we invite you to use this Message Board for all questions you might have? The board offers great help with everything related to mIRC!

Thanks for using mIRC, have fun on IRC!