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Using Viscosity

Viscosity has many different options to control and customise the way your connections operate, as well as how Viscosity displays information and how it looks. All of these options are available in the Preferences window which can be accessed via clicking the Viscosity icon on your Menu Bar (Mac) or in the System Tray or Notification Area (Windows).

We recommend reading through Getting Started With Viscosity (Mac) or Getting Started With Viscosity (Windows) before this article.

Some options may be only available for Mac or Windows, these options are indicated where applicable.

General


 

  • Start Viscosity at Login: Enable to start Viscosity when you login to your computer.
  • Disable Time Machine backups while connected (Mac Only): Stops time machine backups while connected to a VPN. For example, if you VPN home, macOS may try to backup over a data limited connection, this option prevents that from happening.
  • Reconnect active connections on wake: If connections drop out while your computer is asleep, Viscosity will reconnect them automatically when your computer wakes up.
  • Disconnect connections after X minutes of inactivity: If your computer is unused for a certain number of minutes, Viscosity will disconnect any active connections.
  • Automatically check for updates: Automatically check for Viscosity updates. This check takes place once every 24 hours.
  • Check Now: Click to force a check for a Viscosity update. If Include Beta versions is enabled, this check will include beta versions.
  • Include beta versions: Include beta versions in any update checks. Please see Using Viscosity Beta Versions for more information.

Appearance


 

  • Menu Icons: Change the display of the menu icons in your Menu Bar or Notification area. You can sometimes find extra menu packs on your Forums in the Goodies section.
  • Address Display: Choose whether to prefer to display IPv4 or IPv6 IP addresses in the menu.
  • Traffic Display: Choose whether to display live traffic rates, or total traffic transferred through the VPN
  • Traffic Display: Choose the graph style to display in the main menu, or select None to turn it off.
  • Details window is always on top: Change this option to select whether the Details window will appear on top of other windows.

Advanced


 

  • Automatically disable DHCP when not needed (Mac Only): When using TAP connections your client IP can come either from the OpenVPN server or from a remote DHCP server. However using DHCP when it's not needed can potentially cause problems due to a self-assigned or multiple IP addresses being used. This option will automatically turn off DHCP if its not needed for TAP connections.
  • TAP Driver (Mac Only): Select the TAP driver to be used for TAP (not TUN) connections. In most instances this should be left on Automatic.
  • Adapter Type (Windows 10 2004+ Only): Select the Adapter Driver to be used for connections. This should be left on Viscosity Virtual Adapter in most instances.
  • Use Windows DNS System for Full DNS (Windows Only): Please see the Windows Multi-Homed DNS section of our Preventing Traffic Leaks Article here for more information on this option.
  • Use single network adapter for all connections (Windows Only): Please see Single Adapter Mode (Windows) for more information
  • Create VPN network adapter on import (Windows Only): Creates a network adapter for the connection when it is imported. If this option is not enabled, a network adapter is instead created the first time the connection is connected. If you would like to import a large number of connection into Viscosity, we recommend you disable this option.
  • Set Public Network Location by default (Windows Only): Sets the Network Location Awareness (NLA) profile for connections to Public. Disabling this will generally prompt you to select an NLA profile instead (Public/Private/Domain) once connected.
  • Allow unsafe OpenVPN commands to be used: Allows dangerous OpenVPN commands or options to be used. This option requires Administrator rights to enable. Please see Error: Unsafe OpenVPN command detected for more information.
  • OpenVPN Version: When major OpenVPN updates are released, older versions are sometimes retained in Viscosity for connecting to older servers, you can change versions here if they are available, otherwise Automatic will allow Viscosity to select the best version for your configuration.
  • Clear All Saved Credentials (Windows Only): Clears all saved login credentials for all connections. Can be useful for troubleshooting connection issues.
  • Import From: Viscosity will check for and import any OpenVPN connections it finds in the default storage location for these applications.

About


 

The About tab displays information about Viscosity. Here you will see the version of Viscosity you are using, as well as useful links, credits and legal information.

If you are still trialing Viscosity and choose to purchase a license, it can be entered here by pressing the Register button, or you can click Purchase License to be taken to our store. Fore more information on registering Viscosity, or if you are having problems, please take a look at Registering Viscosity.

If Viscosity is already registered, you will see your registered name for the license you are using here instead.