Remote access

[Crewman47]

Just looking for some advice on how one might set this up and what you need for it. I'm asking becuasemy parents live around 20 odd miles away from me and normally have at least one question or problem that they can't fix about the computer per week. Now I can mostly do this over the phone with them but I like to see what I'm doing with them so they don't screw anything up and was wondering if being able to set up a remote access to my parents copmputer would be the best way to go. Only thing is I know next to nothing about it and wouldn't know where to begin and how it all works like what its like when you connect to someone else's machine and see what they see, does it replace what you have on your desktop or is it like a pop-up window with there desktop in there?

Thanks.

 

[Marc]

Just looking for some advice on how one might set this up and what you need for it. I'm asking becuasemy parents live around 20 odd miles away from me and normally have at least one question or problem that they can't fix about the computer per week. Now I can mostly do this over the phone with them but I like to see what I'm doing with them so they don't screw anything up and was wondering if being able to set up a remote access to my parents copmputer would be the best way to go. Only thing is I know next to nothing about it and wouldn't know where to begin and how it all works like what its like when you connect to someone else's machine and see what they see, does it replace what you have on your desktop or is it like a pop-up window with there desktop in there?

Thanks.

You can go the remote desktop approach using components within Windows. There are two options there - you have the remote desktop where you have complete control of the computer or the remote assistance so you can see what they are doing and help them.

it's pretty straight forward - turn on the remote access option in system properties -> remote and give the necessary permission.

On their router set it to forward port 3389 to their computer. Though the trick is finding the IP address of their internet connection.

There are a number of other ways (e.g Norton PCAnywhere) and there's that's web based thought it's name escapes me - but that requires them to initiate something at their end. The windows remote desktop (won't once you've got it setup.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Hamachi
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/vpn.asp?lang=en

is a encrypted, secure peer-to peer VPN service, and it's free!

Hamachi will allow you to get a TCP/IP connection to the parental PC, even if it has to traverse a firewall on both ends to do it.

That's getting the two PCs where that can talk to each other, so now for the remote control part.

You didn't mention the OS running on the parental machine. If it's XP Pro, and you're just trying to get onto the machine to work on it, then the remote desktop application built in to the OS will work just fine.

If you're needing the parental folks to see what you're doing as you do it, a package like RealVNC may be the tool to use since it actually takes over the existing PC desktop, whereas the windows remote desktop actually starts another session and ports it to the remote PC

www.realvnc.com

 

[Cincinnatus]

I recommend setting up a free account with Logmein. It will allow you to connect to your parents' PC and it will allow them to see what you are doing on the desktop or you can watch them control the pc while you direct them.

www.logmein.com