Q: VNC connection to an iMac running Lion from Windows - very slow

I've been having the same issue with the VNC login screen with every VNC app I try.  Sometimes I get through that initial login where I have to enter my password, but about half the time it just freezes up and I need to close my VNC app and try again.  The last time though, I then couldn't even connect to the computer at all until I got to work and restarted the computer itself.  Once I get past the intial login screen, thinks are okay.  This has been very frustrating.

I am also having major issues with getting VNC to work - I am using the free realVNC client on Windows 7 connecting to a mac book air running lion with the first service pack.

The initial log on screen paints okay, but I can't enter in my password. I type and the little dots for the password show up very slowly.

This issue is caused by a difference in the way Lion handles screen logins.

You must change the way you log in so that the client uses Mac OS X sign, on the Mac OS X user and Mac OS X password and not a VNC password.

On the Lion machine that is acting as the server to remote to, have screen sharing on but untick the two boxes in the Computer Settings area as shown in this screenshot:-

This set up works well with my Lion Mac using Mocha VNC iOS client and gives a very usable response across the internet from my iPhone 4.

Before I made these changes I could barely log in.

I tried your suggestion, but it did not help. If I unchecked the VNC viewers password option, vnc complains:

No Matching Security Types:

Which windows vnc viewer are you using?

I am using Mocha VNC Lite version 3. This is free on the Apple Store. There is also a pay version of the software so note you can use the free one to get it working and use it properly, the full paid version just adds a few nice to haves and allows scrolling in windows using two fingers.

I have same problem - very, very slow response just for that signon screen - and it's sporadic. I just have to close and retry until I get success. Has anyone solved this problem yet (as there's nothing posted since Aug 29 2011)? Once I am successfully signed on, it's ok.

I am not using an iPhone so leefromaynespark's suggestion is not relevant. I am using VNC Personal Edition for Windows P4.6.3 - from Windows. (I had to use this version to overcome a security issue.)

Vine worked well for me, thanks Hannes.

The Lion in-built screen sharing was painfully slow which seemed to be caused by the high resolution & colors of the shared screen.  I could not find a way to adjust those setting through the Lion VNC setup.

Vine installed quickly and easily.   When connecting using VNC viewer, it allows me to scale down the colors through the connection settings on-the-fly which makes the response time much faster depending on what I need.  I am going with Vine for now.

Having just automatically installed the upgrade to Mac OS X 10.7.4 which included a new version of Apple Remote Desktop client (V3.5.3), the problem seems to have been fixed, at last.

Has anyone else seen an improvement?