Setting up Remote Desktop

[DaPeeps]

Originally Posted by stevenmh

Oh, for the love. Is MS serious?

I was in a seminar all day today. Got boring. REAL boring. Guy reading building code verbatim. So I decided I'd give RDP 6.1 a spin for the first time.

I enter the info, hit connect, and it brings up my Vista x64 desktop. Lookin' sweet. I open up my email to look for an order confirmation. About 10 seconds later, RDP disconnects. I try to connect again, but I get an error message about my connection settings. I reboot, same thing. Google for the RDP6.1 cab, download, reinstall, same thing. Now I'm getting disgruntled because my email is open at home... auto checking POP3 every 5 minutes and deleting mail off the server... so I can't even check email on my Pro the rest of the day. Try Windows Remote Workplace or whatever it's called into our server, thinking I'll RDP from my work desktop into home and shut down mail, but neither Opera nor PIE will download the ActiveX component to do that through SBS2003. So I spend the rest of the day BITTER.

I come home, turn off the phone, turn on wi-fi, and it's working fine thru LAN and WAN. Try phone data again, same problem. Install RDP6.1 on my wife's Treo 800w, it works fine. So I google around and end up here in this thread.

So I try again, manually start a data connection through Comm Manager, and now it works fine.

Seriously. MS's RDP client can't auto start a data connection? Actually, it seems it can, but just sometimes refuses to. Based on what? Mood? I mean, it worked the first time I tried it, and then just stopped. And now, having gotten it to work, I disconnected and I let 10 seconds go by for the data connection to terminate (thru Advanced Config tool option), try it again, and this time it auto starts the data connection and stays connected, even if I just let it sit there and do nothing. I even let it sit long enough for the screen to turn off, turn it back on, and the data connection / RDP session is still uninterrupted.

So I went all day without email for no reason. Stupid random Windows nonsense.

^^
This is why I don't use Remote Desktop. VNC is just all around easier in my opinion. Much cleaner and less obtrusive..and wonderful stability. I can control my PC with no problems at all...without the session timing out or lagging or anything. I truly do love it.

And to be honest, the less Microsoft products that you have to use the better.

[dagnasty]

Originally Posted by mikenerd

Can someone please check my work? Can't get it to work...dont know why.

I am using Vista and my computer is connected to a router

1. went to whatismyipaddress.com from the computer I want to access and wrote it down

2. went to dynDNS and signed up for a dynamic DNS. I checked the "host ip option" I used auto-detect ip there and it came up with the same ip from above. When I finished signing up I installed their DynDNS updater to my machine in case my ip changes

3. set up a static ip on the computer I want to conncet to.

4. Forwarded the port to the above static ip.

5. Setup DDNS in my router settings:
put in my DynDNS username for "username"
put in my DynDNS password for "password"
put in "myname.kicks-***.net" for "hostname"
selected "dynamic" form the drop down
Then I hit update and it say "updated"

6. Fire wall in windows and router is off.

7. I enabled "allow remote connections" in system on the computer I want to connect with.

8. I had never setup my PC user name so I did that under accounts and assigned a password.

9. Went to my TP and opened RDT and put in:
"myname.kicks-***.net" under "computer"
put in my cumputer's name under "user name"
put in my computer's password under "password"
I left domain blank.

When I hit connect I get:
Cannot connect: 1) specified computer name or IP does not exist. 2) A network error occured while establishing a connection.

I can't figure it out.....What did I miss?????

Can you ping your address?

[mikenerd]

Originally Posted by dagnasty

Can you ping your address?

Yes....

I just figured out after a lot of banging my head that since I have vista home basic I dont Have remote desktop. Damn it. I guess there is not an add-on I can get/install right?

Thanks

[dagnasty]

Originally Posted by mikenerd

Yes....

I just figured out after a lot of banging my head that since I have vista home basic I dont Have remote desktop. Damn it. I guess there is not an add-on I can get/install right?

Thanks

No Vista Home does not have RDP built into it. You can try VNC.

[b4u2]

using VNC how long should it take to connect? VNC viewer just says "connecting to host" it's been that way for a long time now.

[themaster]

Originally Posted by DaPeeps

^^
This is why I don't use Remote Desktop. VNC is just all around easier in my opinion. Much cleaner and less obtrusive..and wonderful stability. I can control my PC with no problems at all...without the session timing out or lagging or anything. I truly do love it.

And to be honest, the less Microsoft products that you have to use the better.

This is just plain ignorance.. first of Remote Desktop isn't a microsoft product.. unless microsoft bought CITRIX..

2ndly, the reason why people love citrix/terminal services.. is cause when you open a window it downloads the math of the window.. not taking a picture of it like VNC does.. this is no doubt cause citrix and microsoft have a very nice agreements in place for citrix to see the source code of windows..

Now what might be a bigger step of genuis to make Remote Desktop or VNC working better would be to have a built in DDNS client.. and or even having the program keep the port open thus eliminating the need for router configuration? maybe that's why software like logmein (a vnc clone) is popular..

[esqueue]

Originally Posted by dagnasty

Most routers have a setting somewhere in the control panel to add it.

Thanks, this was the thing that I didn't know about.

[rdd0512]

%^#&%#^&%#^ rdm &$*&$&*(%& vnc ^)(^)&*))(&_ logmein.com god (^*%(*&%. i cant get any of this stuff to work because i cant forward my port because my )(*^(*^() router isnt on the *&)&() list at port forwarding.com is there another way to do the port crap, when i found out ehich ip address took me to my router there is no port forwarding tab in there. its an old motorolla surf board 4100 (sb4100) its not on their list. any ideas?

[dagnasty]

Originally Posted by rdd0512

%^#&%#^&%#^ rdm &$*&$&*(%& vnc ^)(^)&*))(&_ logmein.com god (^*%(*&%. i cant get any of this stuff to work because i cant forward my port because my )(*^(*^() router isnt on the *&)&() list at port forwarding.com is there another way to do the port crap, when i found out ehich ip address took me to my router there is no port forwarding tab in there. its an old motorolla surf board 4100 (sb4100) its not on their list. any ideas?

SB4100 is a cable modem, not a router. Does the network cable go from the modem directly into your PC?

[rdd0512]

ahhhh ya i figured that out i am retarded. but yes it is plugged directly to the pc and i checked my firewall and it is supposed to allow remote desktop and i checked to make sure port 3389 was the port (by trying to add a new port for remote desktop with 3389) sorry for that retard rant ive been trying to do this for a while and well it gets pretty frustrating.