Remote Desktop?

October 31, 2005 10:55 AM

Windows XP Remote Desktop. I know there are many info on this, but I really need simple version for my brain to compute.

o.k. I have one cable modem one router and three Windows XP Pro computers at home. I want to be able to Remote Desktop on to these computers from another states or world. I will be doing very basic things like copy files and simple checkup on computers. I just need basic security setting (but don't want to be totally open). I am somewhat successful on Remote Desktop behind my router. But never been able to Remote Desktop from other places. The computers will be restarted every day... I think this also gives me headache in Remote Desktop. Can someone give me very simple way to do what I want to do? (oh... even when i am behind my router, i noticed that my ip address in each computer changes... which also gives me problem)

These are things that I know how to do: Turn off XP firewall ... use Zone Alarm... kinda know what ports are but not really...

Would using PC anywhere better and easier?? I noticed that using ZoneAlarm was easier than XP Firewall.

posted by curiousleo to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

1) You could set up Remote Desktop on each of the machines to run on different TCP ports

2) You could then set up your router to do port forwarding to the IP addresses your router assigns to each machine

For example, you would set up RD on machine A with port 10000, machine B with port 10001, machine C with port 10002.

Each machine can be given a fixed, private IP address by your router, depending on your router. Let's say machine A is 10.0.1.2. B is 10.0.1.3. C is 10.0.1.4.

Now set up the port forwarding on the router configuration to redirect TCP port traffic on port:

• 10000 to 10.0.1.2
• 10001 to 10.0.1.3
• 10002 to 10.0.1.4

Remotely, set up your RDC client with three profiles, each to connect to the three custom ports, using the fixed, public IP address for your router.

The router will then do the work of redirecting the RD traffic to one of the three machines.
posted by Rothko at 11:10 AM on October 31, 2005

One thing remote desktop won't do is file transfer. You might want to check out UltraVNC. It does... "FileTransfer, Video Driver, Encryption Plugins, MS Logon, high performances over all kinds of connections, Viewer Toolbar, JavaViewer with FileTransfer, autoscaling and serverside scaling, Multiple Monitors support, Repeater/proxy support, good Security and Text Chat."
posted by SteveInMaine at 1:23 PM on October 31, 2005

SteveInMaine is wrong, Remote desktop does indeed do file transfer, it does it by mapping the drives of the local machine to the remote machine over the RDP link. Be aware that it isn't advised to do this over slow links though.

Depending on the limitations of your firewall you can either set up forwards from three different external ports, say: 3389, 3390, 3391 to the internal (behind firewall) IPs: 100, 101, 102 port 3389 (same internal port for each IP).

If your firewall will not let you do port forwards like that, you can edit your registry to set the port to something else (probably not a bad idea from a security standpoint anyway).

Oh yeah, Rothko didn't mention this: In RDC you specify port number with a : after the IP address:
example: myip.com:3390 (default is 3389)
posted by jduckles at 1:42 PM on October 31, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for the quick replies...
But I need little more down to earth examples...
How do I permanantly assign ip address to each computer so that even after computer is reset, it still has the same number?... my router seems to assign different address everytime it reboots. Do I do this in XP or in my router?

Also from client computer, where do i find my ip address to put in RD log in menu? When I do ipconfig, I get generic address like 192.168.2.9 or something.... and it dosen't seems to work unless i am behind my router.
Am i missing something here?

Please treat me as absolute beginner on this matter....
Thank you for any help
posted by curiousleo at 2:58 PM on October 31, 2005

How do I permanantly assign ip address to each computer so that even after computer is reset, it still has the same number?... my router seems to assign different address everytime it reboots. Do I do this in XP or in my router?

It is likely easier to do this in your router. The exact configuration instructions will depend upon your router.

Also from client computer, where do i find my ip address to put in RD log in menu? When I do ipconfig, I get generic address like 192.168.2.9 or something.... and it dosen't seems to work unless i am behind my router. Am i missing something here?

Open your router's configuration web page and look at its configuration page or, alternatively, in the router's logs. The IP address will be listed here.
posted by Rothko at 3:14 PM on October 31, 2005

Response by poster: Is that mean every router has unique ip address..?
So when i type its address my client computer will find my router at home through internet?

i never understood how these things work... so if anyone have time... please explain

thanks
posted by curiousleo at 3:36 PM on October 31, 2005

Not do derail, but thanks, jduckles. I didn't know I could do file transfers in remote desktop. Guess I should have read TFM.
posted by SteveInMaine at 3:40 PM on October 31, 2005

The reason the IPs are changing behind your firewall is that you have them set to DHCP. DHCP makes it terribly convenient for you to have no idea how IP networks work, you just plug in your computer and the DHCP protocol automatically assigns an IP address to each computer that asks via the DHCP protocol.

If you want the address to be the same every time you have two options. One you can see if your router has so-called "static-DHCP", this will assign IP addresses based upon the physical network address of the network cards in the computer (the MAC address). Most consumer routers do not have this (last I checked).

You could also set static IP addresses in the network configuration on each computer. There are many caveats to this approach, first is that you must make sure that the DHCP server in your router does not assign the same IP addresses that you are planning to statically asign. This is usually set (at least in Linksys routers) with a starting IP address and a range (number of total IPs the DHCP server can hand out).

That should get you started and any basic "Setting up Networking in Windows XP" should help you figure things out.
posted by jduckles at 4:12 PM on October 31, 2005

That should have been "Setting up Networking in WindowsXP" FAQ.
posted by jduckles at 4:12 PM on October 31, 2005

Good info above. I'd also suggest you find out your external IP address and whether your ISP gives you a dynamic or static IP. If you have a dynamic IP (like me, and mine changes more often than I change underwear), you'll need a dynamic DNS service. Your router may have this service built in.

The IP addresses jduckles speaks of are internal ip addresses.
posted by sublivious at 6:38 PM on October 31, 2005

Response by poster: Now I am starting to get the picture...
I do have dynamic ip... so i will try with that dynamic dns service...

I thought RD will be a very simple XP feature... but it seems there are a lot more things to do before a normal person can even get one use out of it
posted by curiousleo at 7:41 PM on October 31, 2005

RD is easy if the machine running the RD service has a static address. Once you have a private network with dynamic addresses, things get a little more involved.
posted by Rothko at 9:04 PM on October 31, 2005

It's not what you said you were doing, but if what you *really* want to do is have a secure, encrypted tunnel through which you can surf from work, most people create an SSH tunnel through which all the RD traffic routes. BitVise has both a simple SSH server and a tunneling product. There's some tutorials and How-To's that you might find helpful.
posted by TuffAustin at 6:11 AM on November 1, 2005

Response by poster: o.k.. i assigned all the ip address for each computer
but i can't find port forwarding menu anywhere...

also what do i type in from client pc log in?
i typed in ip address found from router...

but can not connect.
posted by curiousleo at 9:52 AM on November 1, 2005