Access to My Programs – From Anywhere

Greetings,

I have been getting a lot of use from my laptop on the “road” the past few days. I wish that I had become a “road warrior” a long time ago.

I now want to expand my capabilities beyond just being able to access “My Documents”. I have found that I could get more accomplished if I had access to the programs on my desktop as well as the data.

Windows XP Pro has a remote desktop function that allows us to access everything on our desktop machine from a remote computer. With a few clicks of your mouse in the right places, you can configure your computer to allow you to login remotely. You will also have to open a port in your router to allow the outside connection to get to your computer.

Remote access programs have been around for a long time. PC-Anywhere is one of the oldest and most stable remote access programs. I have also used NetOP from CrossTec. I have had clients who have successfully used GoToMyPC, though I believe there is a charge associated with it. There are also open source and free programs available such as VNC.

These programs all work about the same. Each requires a Host and a Guest to be configured. Once you have these configured you need to configure your router to open a specific port and then forward any traffic to that port to your computer. It sounds more complicated than it really is.

Let me know if you think remote access is something you need to know more about.

Marc