One for the IT floks

Here's the scenario.

I have my pc at home which is completely stand alone. I use ISDN to connect to the internet. I also have another in the office in town which is euqaully stand alone but uses a broadband connection. Both run XP SP2.

I'm looking for someway to get remote access to the files on the office computer once I get home and was thinking of using PCAnywhere. Can anyone recommend this or another alternative?

Thanks in advance

John

spokey wrote: VNC?

Very Nice Chap - or should I think it means something else???

Hi John,

I don't know how technical you are with computers so I apologise if this is either too simplified or too technical... 

Windows XP comes with its own remote connection system built in.

On the machine you want to control you need to go to the system properties.  Do this by right clicking the "My Computer" icon and choosing properties or going into control panel and opening System.

From here click on the "Remote" tab at the top.  Tick the box next to "Allow users to connect remotely to this computer".

This is all that needs to be done on the machine to be controlled.  It might warn you that one or more local user accounts have blank passwords - these are usually disabled accounts like the "guest" account.

The problem will now come as to whether your machine at work is on a static IP address or a DHCP assigned IP address.

A static IP address will stay the same all the time whereas the DHCP assigned IP can sometimes change.  You should be ok most of the time though.  But before you leave your work you need to make note of the ip address of your machine so you can attempt to contact it from home.

Click start.  Then click Run.  In the box which appears type cmd.

A black box will appear.  This is the command prompt.  type the command ipconfig

This will return some information.  The number you're interested in is IP Address.  note this down.  An example is 169.40.20.1

The number you note down is the address you're going to use to try and connect to your work machine from home.  It's like a phone number for your home computer to talk to your work computer.

When you get to your home computer click Start.  then click All Programs.  Then Accessories.  Then Communications.  Then select Remote Desktop Connection.

In the computer field enter the IP address of your work machine and then click connect.  You should get the login screen of your work machine and you should be free to use it as you normally would.

If all does go well and you want to perform file transfers between the two machines start up remote desktop connection as before but before you click connect click Options and then click Local Resources.

Tick the box next to Disk Drives.  Now click connect.

This should now show the disk drives on your home machine in the Windows Explorer of your work machine allowing you to save and open files on your home machine from your work machine.

Phew.....

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers

Gaz

Hi Stephen,

Remote Desktop Connection will let you transfer files through the drive mapping option I described above.  I know this because we use it all the time at work to transfer files to servers we only have Remote desktop access to due to firewall restrictions.

I also use it to connect to and transfer files to and from my Desktop XP machine at the office I normally work in when I'm working offsite with my laptop which is also XP.  (Just double checked it actually and it does do that).

Cheers

Gaz

Pegsta wrote: Hi Stephen, Remote Desktop Connection will let you transfer files through the drive mapping option I described above.  I know this because we use it all the time at work to transfer files to servers we only have Remote desktop access to due to firewall restrictions. I also use it to connect to and transfer files to and from my Desktop XP machine at the office I normally work in when I'm working offsite with my laptop which is also XP.  (Just double checked it actually and it does do that). Cheers Gaz

He's right you know because I use it as well!

But don't ask me how it works as I can only use it after my 'teckie' work-chums set it all up for me and gave me an 'idiots-guide' on how to!!

technophobia? what's that??