Hi there, a bit of background to start.

We are using SEE4C (from marshallsoft.com) for sending email from our application, and have been for some time. We call various functions from their see32.dll.

It has been sitting on the back-burner for some time, but now we must implement TLS/SSL for outgoing mail.

MarshallSoft don't do TLS/SSL themselves, instead passing that responsibility on to stunnel by way of an internal function

I have been reading MarshallSoft's doco and find that I have to 'install' stunnel and have it running in the background either as a services or starting it when the user logs on (in the Startup group).

I also read in their doco regarding mapped drives:

MAPPED DRIVES

Beginning with Windows 10 update 1803, all executables (such as SEE application programs, SEE32.DLL/SEE64.DLL, and Stunnel) must be loaded from a local drive, not a mapped drive.

Unfortunately the requirement to install stunnel and inability to run it from a mapped drive doesn't suit many of our clients installation base.

Many of them run our application from a mapped drive.

I also don't want the overhead of installing stunnel on each workstation that needs to send email or distribute and maintain configuration files. I have enough work to do.

Can stunnel be called (started) on an ad-hoc basis and stopped again, only when email is being sent?

I don't mean to whine, what options do I have, do our clients have?

Cheers,

Andrew