eeepc as a vista remote control?

August 15, 2008 3:27 AM

Trying to control the screen of my windows vista desktop from my linux laptop. details inside.

So what I'm looking for is a live desktop remote control (over a LAN) for my desktop running Vista Ultimate x64 from my Eee pc running Ubuntu 8.04.

My ultimate goal would be to have my PC's screen mirrored on my laptop, so, for example; I could switch between different video files or control dvd functions across my room from the couch. I remember being able to do this years ago when both my systems were linux and I could just use the terminal to ssh in my desktop, but I'm really unsure about the inner workings of vista.

I've seen my friend do this on his nintendo DS with the R4 chip, but I tried googling and don't even know where to begin looking for this solution.

Thanks in advance if you can guide me in the right direction.

posted by meowN to computers & internet (7 comments total)

If the eee runs a stock Ubuntu, try Applications->Internet->Terminal Server Client, use your Vista box's computer name (or IP address, if the computer name doesn't work) as Computer:, and choose RDPv5 under Protocol.
posted by flabdablet at 3:37 AM on August 15, 2008

I'm not sure if Vista Ultimate allows you to use Remote Desktop without paying more for a Terminal Server client access licence. If Vista starts giving you grief about Terminal Server licencing, install UltraVNC on the Vista box (including the video hook driver) and choose VNC as the protocol in the eee's Terminal Server Client.
posted by flabdablet at 3:42 AM on August 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

a new issue has come up, i can't get to my desktop from the laptop now. i can ping from vista to ubuntu fine, but a ping from ubuntu to vitsa just times out (and therefore so does the TSC attempt).
posted by meowN at 3:59 AM on August 15, 2008

oops, scratch that, i'm an idiot and windows firewall was on.
posted by meowN at 4:00 AM on August 15, 2008

woohoo awesome! UltraVNC was exactly what I needed and it works great. Thanks!
posted by meowN at 4:10 AM on August 15, 2008

You may experience occasional remote screen corruption while using VNC (I do). Hitting F8 on the eee and selecting "Refresh screen" works around it. I also like to turn off the "render cursor locally" option (F8, then select Options).
posted by flabdablet at 5:14 AM on August 15, 2008

For future reference, vista ultimate (and business) does have a single user Remote Desktop Client (i.e. RDP) on it, but it is literally single user, so it will log out the local login and blank the screen when you control it remotely. Quite annoying. It is hackable by screwing with the registry, or using the remote help request thingy, but it's really not worth it when ultravnc or tightvnc do such a good job.
posted by ArkhanJG at 10:27 AM on August 15, 2008