LAN programming under Windows?
 

About 10-15 years ago I had set up a small network in my office using Lantastic. One of the features was their programming facility (if 'programming' is the right word).

You could enter commands such as:

NET date
NET cd\
NET program.nam
NET cls

etc.

and they would be executed on the target machine. I was able to use this capability to program remote machines to do various tasks and we would pass files back and forth and so on.

I now have another network at home, and, of course, it's a lot faster and I'd like to do the same sort of thing (I'm trying to put a backup file server in the basement) but the only obvious thing I've been able to do is pass files back and forth.

Running Win XP SP3. Does this sort of capability exist under Windows, or would I need additional software from somebody. If so, who would you recommend?

Yes, you would just share a folder. You can buy a NAS (small network attached storage) and not even need a computer. Apple does a good job of this with its time capsule. Another good option is microsoft's home server os.

Basically though, if you just want to share a folder on the XP machine you right click and....its too late to type it. Lots of tutorials online and it should be easy. :)

The sharing a folder part is easy. As I said, I can just pass files back and forth with wild abandon. :).

However, I want to be able to execute programs on the remote machine (that are resident on the remote machine) and go about my business while he's doing his thing, without having to go down to the basement and work the keyboard.

It may be pretty easy and I'm just not looking in the right places, but Mircosoft seems to tell you all about things you don't care about in great detail, and not much about what you do.

Google didn't turn up anything, but who knows if I used the appropriate search phrases?

And, because this is more of a hobby thing than a business expense, I'm not all that keen on hiring consultants, buying new OS's and re-doing the whole thing. I just want to be able to do some simple stuff I did 15 years ago.

Look at remote desktop.

What he said. What exactly are you looking to don this other computer. It's not like most people need any kind of machine to sit idly by and just crunch data. Unless you're doing a lot of high res video work and are looking for a rendering farm, it seems like it's not something you would really need. What kind of programs are you talking about?

Another vote for remote desktop. It is an indispensable tool, and I use it to manage 4 different computers in my office from my main computer.

Sounds like you are wanting to do basic telnet stuff.
Check out this link by M$: Windows XP Telnet

I am not recommending or endorsing any software or solution just listing things I've found useful in the past.
PSExec
puTTY
UltraVNC Is a Remote Desktop tool

logmein has a very good free version as well.

Would second that suggestion.

Yeah, thanks all.

I had thought of remote desktop after I went to bed.

I looked up what I had been doing back then. It was Lantastic-Z, and I used the other computer(s) as print servers, file servers, etc.

Remember, this was back well before gHz machines and (relatively) stable versions of Windows - we were running pretty much everything under DOS.
I'm probably not like other people. I put the particular computer in question together for about 20 bucks using stuff I had laying around. It doesn't have to do anything other than sit on the line and get files occasionally, and then distribute them to the mirror array. I wrote all the software to do that years ago and just updated it to work under FAT32 (NTFS is hopeless for that stuff). I don't mind having a computer do nothing for 99% of the time. I just want to tie some of them together and stick things here and there without having to get up and go there.

I will check out the other suggestions, too.

This is the right stuff, all right, but lots of cockpit problems. Mostly, figuring out what they mean by "user name" - my login name? the computer name? administrator? What? My name? The name of the remote computer? My password? His password? Of course, the computer name is not the same as the full computer name. Not even close.

The documentation says I must have a password, but when I installed XP I don't remember entering a password, and I certainly don't need one to start up and get going.

Set up passwords on my user account, but that didn't work, either.

Recovering the admin password requires a lot of scary steps, any one of which might kill your system. Geez.

I think I'll get a local guy to sit down with me and go through this step-by-step. This reminds me of my many attempts to get a Linux distro going. The various 'help' folks seemed aghast that I didn't already know all this stuff and, in effect, told me I "wasn't worthy" to run Linux if I had to ask such stupid questions.

I appreciate everyone's input. I'm in the right church, just gotta find the right pew.

I'm not sure I can sift through your metaphors to understand what's going on. :) Are you trying to use Remote Desktop? If so, you could just create a new Windows user with privileges to access the computer through Remote Desktop, and log on to that.

Else, you can install TightVNC Server. It's free and runs in the system tray of the computer to be remote controlled. The corresponding TightVNC Viewer is the client. If you're just running these on a LAN with a router or other firewall between these computers and the internet, you don't really need to specify a VNC password unless you want to. VNC is a common protocol and there are clients/servers for Mac and Linux too.

It's not that you're not worthy. It's that Linux is generally unforgiving of errors and sometimes can require significant tweaking to get it to work. Your 'help' folks probably just didn't want to be inundated with requests for support from you. :)

That said, if you have an inclination to learn, try out Ubuntu. It's the most user friendly Linux and the one I run. You can download its installer and just install it as a Windows program with no changes to your computer. Then, when and if you want, you can install it as a real operating system.

The [advanced] command you want is probably WMIC.

If all you want to do is share files and printers, use Windows Printer & File Sharing.

I don't want this to go on and on, and I certainly don't expect someone here to hold my hand. But having said that ...

Yes, I'm trying to use Remote Desktop. The Help gives step-by-step, which I do, and it doesn't work. I seem to be able to get connected, but I'm totally unaware of any passwords I have. So I changed my User Account to have a password, and that didn't work. So I tried Guest, and it apparently doesn't allow that. When I get a message, I don't know whether it comes from my machine of the remote machine.

I can usually form a mental picture of what's going on and know where I'll have to fill in the blanks, but maybe I'm too analytical - when I'm told something like "Enter computer name" I wonder "Which Name?" My computer seems to have at least two names ("Main Pump" and something like "BigLar-Af4E618B1) and neither one works. Then there's the name it greets me with when I turn it on (User - Larry ; I'm the only one who uses this machine). So that's three names (none of which work).Nice words, but what exactly do they mean? Try telling that to someone who has only used Windows computers set up by someone else, and you'll probably get a blank look. I mean, what's the step-by-step procedure involved in "...just creating a new Windows user with privileges..."? I've worked my way through a lot of stuff in the past, but this one seems hellbent on frustrating me. A simple indication that the operation "failed" doesn't tell me much.

I'm pretty sure this is the stuff I want to use, so I'll beat on someone who's done it and have him/her sit down with me. Nothing like a knowledgeable finger pointing out "Right here, thickhead!" to make things go smoothly.

Sorry about the metaphors. :)

I have a marvelous proof of that. Unfortunately, the margin is too small to contain it. :)

OK, so the basic idea is that you're using your computer (the client) to connect to the other computer (the server) and remotely control it as if you were sitting in front of it. I strongly recommend using VNC because it's easier to set up. You just install it.

That said, here's what you should be doing with the Windows built in functionality. You need to either give your user account on the server a password, or create a new account (which is what I detail below). Windows won't let you do Remote Desktop with an account that doesn't have a password.

1. On the server, right click My Computer and choose Manage. Open the Local Users & Groups option and click Users. Under the Action menu, choose New User. Fill out the User Name and give it a password. Uncheck the box that the user has to change its password on the next login, and check the Password Never Expires box. Click Create, then Close. Close the Computer Management window. Congrats, you've created a new user in Windows.

2. On the server, right click My Computer and choose Properties. Click the Remote tab and check the box to allow remote users to connect to this computer. Make a note of what it says is the "full computer name". Then click the button to select remote users. Click Add. Then type the user name (which you typed in the User Name field when you added the user) of the user you created in step 1. Click Check Names and it should add some stuff to what you typed, and underline it. Click OK until you get out of all the windows you've opened.

3. On the client, open the Start Menu, point to All Programs, then Accessories. Choose Remote Desktop Connection. Type the "full computer name" you noted in step 2 above and click Connect. You should be presented with a login screen. Give it the user name of the user you created in step 1, and its password. You will see your server computer's desktop and be able to control it as if you were sitting in front of it.

THere's your hand-holding. Now go get me a gin and tonic. :)

It's asking for the computer name you're trying to connect to. Control Panel > System > Computer Name.

Yup, you'll have to set one. It is possible to configure Windows to autologin even with a password so this isn't too big a nuisance.

It's on the machine you are connecting to, not on the machine you're on.

Yep. I knew that. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense.Ah. Would have been nice if they'd said that. It wasn't at all obvious. To me, anyhow. :) But that's no big surprise.

Yeah, such things very often are cryptic.

This is a XP Pro only feature, they figure it will be used in a business environment and that normally means someone reasonably competent on staff or at least showing people how it works.

Microsoft's documentation is at best skimpy and when it's addressed to professionals it's usually a joke. Dig into the really technical stuff and you find an awful lot of documentation that amounts to this-is-this.

In any event, it worked!

Of course it makes sense once you do it and see what's going on. I feel really stupid for not sussing that out immediately, but I really thought I was following their directions.

Much thanks for the tip -- at least you didn't castigate me for being "not worthy" :)

I realize how cryptic the directions tend to be. It's very hard for the technically trained to write directions for the untrained and it's impossible for the untrained to write the directions because they don't know what to write. The result is most such directions vary from poor to abysmal.