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There could be several reasons why you need remote access. Perhaps you need to provide a family member with support. Or you need to access your computer while traveling. Whatever the use case, you should choose the remote PC solution that is best catered to your needs. Here are the best remote PC access solutions of 2020 per each common use case.
Robert Cowart and Brian Knittel explain how to remotely access your computer over the Internet using Remote Desktop.
This chapter is from the book
Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows Vista
This chapter is from the bookThis chapter is from the book
This excerpt explains how to set up remote access to your own computer. If you want to use the Remote Desktop Connection client to access another computer, see the section entitled 'Using the Remote Connection' in chapter 40 of Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows Vista
Across a local area network (that is, between computers in your home or office), Remote Desktop Connection works right 'out of the box'—you just have to enable the feature.
However, if you want to use Remote Desktop to reach your computer from other computers over the Internet, you have to set up several other things in advance. I give you step-by-step instructions shortly, but to give you an overview, the requirements are as follows:
This sounds complex, but it really isn't that bad. Let's go through the process step by step. You can go about this in other ways, of course, but what I give you here is a procedure that's suitable for a home user with Windows Vista Ultimate edition or a small-office user with the Business version.
Screens 4 5 4 – Access Your Computer Remotely Access Windows 10Enabling Remote Desktop Access to Your Computer
To enable Remote Desktop connections to your computer, follow these steps:
At this point, you should do two things to be sure that Remote Desktop has been set up correctly:
If you just want to use Remote Desktop within your home or office network, you're finished and can skip ahead to the part of the chapter titled 'Connecting to Other Computers with Remote Desktop.'
However, if you want to reach your computer through the Internet, you have more work to do.
Establishing 24x7 Access
Because you won't be there at your home or office to turn on your computer and establish an Internet connection, you have to set things up so that your computer and connection are always working. If the power goes out at your home or office and your computer doesn't start itself up again automatically, you won't be able to connect. Your computer must start up automatically.
To set this up on a desktop computer, you need to get to the BIOS setup screen. You can get there when you first power up the computer, or by restarting Windows and waiting for the screen to go black. Be prepared to press the BIOS Setup hot key. The screen tells you what key to press; it's usually the Del or F2 key.
When you've gotten to the BIOS setup screen, look for the Power Management settings. Find an entry titled AC Power Recovery, or something similar. Change the setting so that your computer turns itself on when the AC power comes on. On some computers, there is also an option that turns on the computer only if it was on when the power failed. That works, too. Then save the BIOS settings and restart Windows.
Besides a 24x7 computer, you need a 24x7 Internet connection. If you have cable Internet service or a type of DSL service that does not require you to enter a username or password, you have an always-on Internet connection already and can skip ahead to the next section.
For DSL service that requires sign-on, you need some means of automatically reestablishing the connection whenever your computer starts up or the connection goes down. Microsoft's built-in Broadband connection sign-on software does not provide a reliable way by itself to keep the Internet connection permanently open. You can work around this in three ways:
Next, you must make sure you can locate your computer from out on the Internet.
Static IP Address or Dynamic DNS
All Internet connections are established on the basis of a number called an IP address, which is to your Internet connection as your telephone number is to your phone. Your IP address uniquely identifies your computer among all the millions of connected computers worldwide. If you use a shared connection, all your network's computers share one public IP address, much as the phone extensions in an office share one outside telephone number.
The question is, when you're somewhere else, how do you find your computer's IP address so that Remote Desktop can establish a connection to it?
If you have purchased a static IP address from your ISP, the answer is, they'll tell you. It has four sets of numbers separated by periods and looks something like this: 64.220.177.62. This will always be your computer's number. You can simply type this in when using the Remote Desktop client to connect to your computer. However, static addresses are relatively hard to get and usually carry a monthly surcharge; in some cases, ISPs simply cannot or will not provide them. So although this is worth looking into, it might not be an option. (My home ISP is sonic.net and static addresses are not expensive, but this is the exception instead of the rule.)
In most cases, dial-up, DSL, and cable Internet connections use dynamic addressing, in which a different IP address is assigned to you every time you or your router connects to your ISP (or, in the case of cable service, whenever your cable modem is reset). Thus, your computer's IP address can change at any time, and you won't necessarily know what it is when you want to connect from somewhere else.
The solution to this problem is to use a free dynamic domain name service (DDNS). It has two parts: First, on a DDNS provider's website, you register a host name, a name of your own choice, attached to one of several domain names that the provider makes available. For example, you might register the host name mycomputer in the domain homedns.org. Second, you set up dynamic DNS client software that periodically contacts the DDNS provider and informs it of your current IP address. Some Internet connection-sharing routers have a DDNS client built in, or you can download and install a software version on your computer. When this is all set up, you can use the name (mycomputer.homedns.com, in our example) to connect to your computer from anywhere on the Internet.
To set up dynamic DNS service at dyndns.com, follow these steps:
Now your DDNS service is set up. Next, you need to set up the DNS client, so that changes to your IP address are sent to dyndns.com.
If you are using an Internet connection-sharing router that supports DDNS, use your router's setup screens to enable DDNS using your dyndns.com login name, password, and full host name. Your router's setup screen will likely differ from this, but it will generally look something like the one in Figure 40.2.
Figure 40.2 Configure your router to update your host name using dynamic DNS.
If your router doesn't have a DDNS client built in, or if you are not using a hardware router, you have to install a software DDNS client to do the job. You want one that doesn't require any manual intervention to get started and that always runs even when nobody is logged on. This means that you need one that operates as a Windows service rather than as a regular desktop application. The free DynDNS Updater program available from dyndns.com fits this bill nicely. Here's how to set it up.
If you use Windows Internet Connection Sharing, perform this procedure on the computer that shares its connection with the Internet, whether or not it's the computer that you're enabling for Remote Desktop access. Otherwise, do this on the computer that you're enabling for Remote Desktop access.
Now your registered host name will always point to your computer, even when your IP address changes. After a change, it might take up to an hour for the update to occur, but changes should be infrequent.
Port Forwarding
The last setup step is to make sure that incoming Remote Desktop connections from the Internet make it to the right computer. If your computer connects directly to your cable or DSL modem, you can skip this step.
However, if you use Internet Connection Sharing or a connection-sharing router, you have to instruct your sharing computer or router to forward Remote Desktop data through to your computer. To be precise, you have to set up your sharing computer or router to forward incoming requests on TCP port 3389 to the computer you want to reach by Remote Desktop.
The procedure depends on whether you are using the Internet Connection Sharing service built into Windows or a hardware-sharing router. Use one of the procedures described in the next two sections.
Port Forwarding with Internet Connection Sharing
If you use the built-in Internet Connection Sharing service provided with Windows to share an Internet connection on one computer with the rest of your LAN, the forwarding procedure is pretty straightforward using these steps:
Now you should be able to reach your computer from anywhere on the Internet. If the connection doesn't work, check the 'Troubleshooting' section at the end of the chapter for some suggestions.
Port Forwarding with a Router
If you are using a hardware connection-sharing router, setup is a bit more difficult but is worthwhile. First, because your router doesn't know your computers by their names, you have to set up a fixed IP address on the computer that you will be using via Remote Desktop, using these steps:
Screens 4 5 4 – Access Your Computer Remotely Access Another
(If you need to set up any other computers with a fixed IP address, use the same procedure but use addresses ending in .249, .248, .247, and so on, counting backward from .250.)
Screens 4 5 4 – Access Your Computer Remotely Access Computer
Now you have to instruct your router to forward Remote Desktop connections to this computer. You need to use the router's setup screen to enable its Port Forwarding feature, which some routers call Virtual Server or Applications and Gaming. There you need to enter the fixed IP address that you assigned to your computer and tell the router to forward connections on TCP port 3389 to this address. Every router uses a slightly different scheme, but Figure 40.5 shows a typical router. If a range of port numbers is required or external and internal numbers are entered separately, enter 3389 in all fields.
Figure 40.5 Use your router's setup system to forward TCP port 3389 to your computer.
Now you should be able to reach your computer from anywhere on the Internet.
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