Dear mIRC User,

mIRC v7.1 has been released today.

This is the first stable release of the new Unicode version of mIRC.

The project to convert mIRC to Unicode has taken almost two years of development and testing and has required tens of thousands of changes to 150,000+ lines of source code. This has been the most complex and time-consuming update to mIRC since it was created in 1995, when it started out as a non-Unicode, 16-bit, Windows 3.1 application.

Many areas of mIRC have had to be updated or re-written, from file handling to text processing, from display to memory allocation, from server communications to file transfers.

mIRC should now be faster, more stable, and more compatible with the latest versions of Windows, and should be able to better handle the display and input of a variety of languages.

In addition to being converted to Unicode, there are a few other notable changes:

Improved Windows 7 compatibility
More reliable INI file handling
Faster text display/scrolling
Speech support
Improved interface design for a number of features
Automatic text color correction
Menubar ALT key show/hide feature
Support for italic text and other font styles
Optimized SSL routines
Status window SSL connection icon
IPv6 support
Improved portable support
Persistent channel history
Digitally signed executables
Automatic splitting of long channel/private messages
Full screen display with F11 function key
UPnP support
Many bug fixes
And more

How to upgrade?
As you know mIRC is distributed in a self-extracting cabinet (mirc71.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.

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.

Full list of Fixes, Changes and Additions.
For a full version history of mIRC v7.x development, please see the list of changes starting with v7.0 which you can find in the whatsnew.txt file on the website. You will need to read through the help file to learn more about these 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!