A new version of ViRC has been released, 2.0rc3. ViRC, if you’re not aware, is one of the better IRC clients for Windows. I used to be a Klient, user, but its lack-of-development since last year finally turned me to look for other options.
And, though it may appear that ViRC doesn’t have some of the more advanced functionality that other clients have built-in (such as auto-away), there’re 3rd party scripts to take care of that (including auto-away).