How to remote into my home computer?

Hello Everyone,

I am currently deployed and my wife e-mailed me and stated that our computer at home has crashed or something. (That is how she put it) Apparently something is wrong, because she can't get onto the web, many of the programs needed for school and she has a different profile for some reason. Can anyone tell me how to remote in and take a look at the problem? Is this an easy process or difficult? I know at work, our communication guys can remote in with ease and take control of our computers. Can I do this, if so how do I go about doing it? Will there be some software that my wife will have to load? Anything will be greatly appreciated. She has finals coming up soon and really needs to get it working again. Thanks in advance.

gadawg

 

If your home computer has Windows XP Professional, Vista Business or Ultimate edition then you can use built in remote desktop feature. However, there are few things you have to configure at your home computer before you can login (enable Remote desktop and add users, let it through the software firewall on your computer, configure the router and forward a listening port if you have multiple computers, and find out your public IP). Otherwise you’ll have to use one of these remote desktop server/clients and configure them, there are several web based services too.

However, if she can’t connect to the internet then there could be a problem with the internet connection, in which case you cannot connect remotely.

 

Remote Assistance would work with a non-Pro MS OS, but no internet will put a kibosh on that pretty quickly.

 

Ok, so another words I only need to have her go into Remote Control Properties, add me as a user or the computer I am trying to remote in from, establish the "Administrator settings" and I should be good to go. Is this sounding correct? Will I simply ping the computer or go to the "run" command and type in the computer IP address to get access? Thanks

 

You may want to look into a program called logmein or hamachi I do think there is a free version or it used to be free. It works extremely well we use it all of our hotels.

 

Basically yes. You need to give permission to a local user on your home PC (the one you are going to connect to). Also Make sure you enable remote desktop through Windows firewall.
Depending on your network configuration pinging or ipconfig at cmd prompt may or may not give the correct public IP, but try it and see. If you get a 10.xxx.xxx.xxx , 172.16.xxx.xxx or 192.168.xxx.xxx IP then that is a local IP, meaning you are behind a router. In that case you'll might have to configure the router as well.. Or you can use a site like whatsmyip.org, but for that you need to be able to browse internet. However as I said before, you need a working internet connection for any of this to work...

 

Windows remote desktop is a good option, but you also need a fast net connection for it to work well. Make sure the relevant services are enabled on both the machines.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsXp/using/mobility/getstarted/Remoteintro.mspx

Also, just FYI I faced many problems trying to remote desktop into my XP Pro PC from my Vista HomPrem SP1 notebook a few months ago. Initially worked fine, but would not let me connect after the 3rd attempt. Never could get it to work again. XP to XP works perfectly.

You could also try VNC, another option for remotely controlling another PC. The software needs to be installed on both machines IIRC (been a while since I last used it). http://www.realvnc.com/

 

I would Suggest TeamViewer why ? Simple , Fast and Secure also has VPN Option and its a Freeware too

http://www.teamviewer.com