Remote Desktop
| Windows XP Professional has a spiffy feature called Remote Desktop that lets you connect to and use your computer from another location. You'll be able to see your computer's screen, move the mouse and type on the keyboard just as if you were there. This is just what you need when you're out of town and need to read a file you left on the computer back home, or if you have to catch up on work at the office while you're at home helping Alexa Marie learn to tie flies. I've been using this feature a lot while writing this book, and I love it. You also can use the Remote Desktop client program to attach to computers running Windows NT Terminal Server Version and Windows 2003 and 2000 Server's Terminal Services. The client program lets you log on to these computers to access special applications or for administration and maintenance. NOTE You don't have to be miles and miles away to take advantage of Remote Desktop, either. You can also use it to access other computers on your own LAN. For instance, you could use it to start a lengthy computing job on someone else's computer without leaving your own desk. Third-party programs such as Carbon Copy, PC Anywhere, Timbuktu, and VNC have been doing this for years, and some of these products have some more sophisticated features, but Remote Desktop is built into Windows XP and it's essentially free. It's a scaled-down version of Windows Terminal Services, a component of the Windows NT/200x Server version that lets multiple users run programs on one central server. By stripped down, I mean that only one person can connect to Windows XP Professional at a time, and it forces a local user off. You can use any Windows or Macintosh computer to reach your computer with Remote Desktop. While the host computer (the computer you'll take control of) has to be running Windows XP Professional, the Remote Desktop Client software (that you use to view your XP computer) can run on any 32-bit version of Windows, and there is a version for Mac OS X. Figure 18.20 shows how this works. Figure 18.20. You can use any Windows-based computer to connect to and control your Windows XP Professional computer.
To use Remote Desktop, the host computer must be reachable over the Internet, and this means that it will need a dedicated Internet connection with a known IP address (or, you'll need someone to make an Internet connection at the computer and tell you what the IP address is). Furthermore, if your computer gets its Internet connection through a shared connection or a residential gateway, your sharing computer or router will have to be set up to forward incoming requests on TCP port 3389 to the computer you want to reach by Remote Desktop. (If you are using Internet Connection Sharing, or have a router that supports Universal Plug and Play, and UPnP is installed on your computer as well, this forwarding will be set up automatically.)
Enabling Remote Desktop Access to Your ComputerTo enable Remote Desktop connections to your computer, follow these steps:
If you want to reach your computer through the Internet, and you use Internet Connection Sharing or a connection sharing router, you'll have to instruct your sharing computer or router to forward Remote Desktop data through to your computer, and you'll only be able to contact one selected computer from outside your network. You'll have to set up your sharing computer or router to forward incoming requests on TCP port 3389 to the computer you want to reach by Remote Desktop. Or, you'll have to be sure that Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is enabled on your router so that Windows can set up the forwarding automatically.
Making More Than One Computer AvailableIf you have more than one computer on your network that you'd like to reach with Remote Desktop, you'll need to set up different external port numbers to forward to the different computers. For example, if I have three computers on my network with static IP addresses 192.168.0.5, 192.168.0.6, and 192.168.0.7, and want to be able to reach any of them using Remote Desktop, I might configure my Internet sharing router to forward incoming connections on port 3389 to the first computer, 3390 to the second, and 3391 to the third. The forwarding information would look like this:
I could connect to the computers from out on the Internet by specifying the port number when I make the connection using the Remote Desktop Client: mycompany.com:3389, mycompany.com:3390, or mycompany.com:3391. If your router doesn't allow you to specify different external and internal port numbers, you can change the port that Remote Desktop "listens" on by editing the registry. Find the key named HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp and locate the value PortNumber. You can change this value (select Decimal mode to make it easier); use 3390 for the second computer, 3391 for the third, and so on. Then, in this case, the router should be provided with the following forwarding information:
Connecting to Other Computers with Remote DesktopTo establish a connection to your computer (or another Remote Desktop server) from somewhere else, you'll need a copy of the Remote Desktop Client, also called the Terminal Services Client. There are several ways you can get this program:
When you run the Remote Desktop Client, you'll see the Remote Desktop Connection dialog, as shown in Figure 18.21. Figure 18.21. The Remote Desktop Connection dialog lets you configure the connection and select the remote computer to use.
Enter the IP address or register DNS name of the computer you'd like to use. (And if you've set up multiple computers as described in the previous section, add a colon and the desired port number, as in mycompany.com:3390). Entering a username and password is optional. If you don't enter them now, you'll be asked for them when the connection is established. Click Connect to establish the connection immediately, or click Options to adjust the connection properties first. The properties tabs are described in Table 18.5.
When you establish the connection, you'll see a standard Windows logon dialog. Enter your username and password to sign on. It may take a while for the logon process to complete, if Windows has to shut down a logged-on user. When you're logged on, you'll see the remote computer's desktop, as shown in Figure 18.22, and can use it as if you were actually sitting in front of it. Keyboard, mouse, display and sound should be fully functional. If you maximize the window, the remote desktop will fill your screen. It all works quite wellit can even be difficult to remember which computer you're actually using! Figure 18.22. When connected to Windows XP via Remote Desktop, your local computer's drives and printers are available for use. TIP If the computer to which you're connecting has more than one monitor, when you start an application, its window may not be visible. The problem is that when it was last used, it was placed on one of the alternate monitors, and its position is now completely off the one Remote Desktop screen. To make it visible, right-click the application's button on the task bar and click Move (or Restore, then Move). Then, press and hold the arrow keys to slide the window into view. Press Enter when it's correctly positioned. In addition, any printers attached to your local computer will appear as choices if you print from applications on the remote computer, and the local computer's drives will appear in the list in My Computer. You can take advantage of this to copy files between the local and remote computers. Finally, your local computer's serial (COM) ports will also be available to the remote computer. (My friend Norm syncs his Palm Pilot to his Windows XP Professional computer from remote locations using this feature.) While you're connected, you might want to use keyboard shortcuts like Alt+Tab to switch between applications. This can confuse Windows, which won't know whether to switch applications on the local computer or the remote computer. You can specify where special key combinations should be interpreted on the Local Resources properties page, as I described earlier, or you can use alternate key combinations to ensure that the desired actions take place on the remote computer. The alternate keyboard shortcuts are shown in Table 18.6.
When you've finished using the remote computer, choose Start, Log Off to end the connection. If you want the remote computer to continue running an application, though, you can simply close the Remote Desktop window or select Disconnect. Your account will stay active on the remote computer until you reconnect and log off, or until a user at that computer logs on. NOTE Windows XP Professional only permits one person to use each computer. If you attempt to connect to a computer with Remote Desktop while another user is logged on, you'll have the choice of disconnecting or forcing them off. If Quick User Switch is enabled, they'll be switched out; otherwise they're summarily logged off. This is somewhat brutal; the other user might lose work in progress. If you log on using the same username as the local user, though, you simply take over the desktop without forcing a logoff. If someone else logs on to the remote computer while you're connected from afar, you'll be disconnected. If Quick User Switch is enabled, you can reconnect later and pick up where you left off. Otherwise, the same deal applies: If it is a different user, your applications will be shut down. |
To learn more about forwarding network requests on a shared Internet connection, 
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