Remote control of Mac by PC?

December 4, 2005 3:09 PM

My Mom has a new Mac (OS X) and I have a PC (WinXP). How can I remotely see her screen and manipulate it easily?

We both have broadband and routers. At home I use VNC, but I don't know how that works cross-platform and across the net.

TIA.

posted by Argyle to computers & internet (9 comments total)

VNC.
posted by devilsbrigade at 3:14 PM on December 4, 2005

Fog Creek's Copilot. Costs money (not much), VNC-based, brain-dead simple.
posted by ldenneau at 3:14 PM on December 4, 2005

(unfortunately Copilot is Windows only)
posted by gac at 3:17 PM on December 4, 2005

Specifically, OSXvnc is a commonly-used VNC server for OS X.
posted by chrismear at 3:20 PM on December 4, 2005

There was just a VNC thread last week--do a search for it.
posted by gramcracker at 3:22 PM on December 4, 2005

Don't forget to setup dynamic DNS for your mom's computer so you can reach it from afar without knowing her IP (and poke a hole in her firewall/router for port 5900, which is what VNC uses).
posted by mathowie at 3:29 PM on December 4, 2005

In 10.4:

1) Apple -> System Preferences
2) Sharing
3) Apple Remote Desktop
4) Authorization Access
5) second checkbox tuns on a VNC server

Built right in, no need to pay for anything.
posted by The Supreme Dominar at 3:45 PM on December 4, 2005

Some guy named Mark posted a How-to video (link is to intro page, not video) on this exact topic.

Also, don't use Apple Remote Desktop over the internet ever.
posted by boaz at 4:40 PM on December 4, 2005

Well... ADR (version 2) is perfectly fine to use over the internet. All keystrokes and mouse events are encrypted. The only thing you have to watch for is what actually appears on the screen, but I can't remember the last time one of my passwords was listed in clear text.

VNC, however, does suffer from the normal VNC faults. Your connection password is encrypted but beyond that everything is open. So SSH tunneling would be appropriate in most contexts, but if you're careful then there's no reason you can't use it unencrypted.
posted by The Supreme Dominar at 5:18 PM on December 4, 2005