Remote desktop software
 

Hi,

I am looking for remote desktop software to install on my parents Windows XP & 7 machine that I can access from outside our LAN via my Mac OS Macbook. I live abroad and need to, from time to time, log into their computers to set things up when they mess things up.

In the old days I believe Norton made software like that. Does anyone have any recommendations? I already have them set up for Dyndns.

Thanks

Logmein free edition does everything I need for remotely accessing my home computer.

https://secure.logmein.com/US/products/free/

Logmein is good, I've used it in the past.

However, I now use Teamviewer, which I feel works better for me.

Both have free options.

I use LogMeIn free for the same purpose, to support my 89 year old father on his W7 computer, across the pond. Works great.

Why don't you just use the built in remote desktop that is in XP and Win 7? There is a free Mac RDP client.

There are some security concerns with RDP; it's a good option if you've got some kind of secure personal/office VPN in front of it, or if you're using a SSH gateway (which is what I do), but I'd have some reservations just opening a forward for port 3389 (the RDP default) on your firewall.

Especially with XP, which as of SP2 and when Vista came out -- this might have changed in SP3 -- didn't use an encrypted connection for it by default and was relatively difficult to configure manually to enable encryption. (Unless it was backported, the version of RDP provided by Vista and Windows 7 [and server 2008/2008R2] is also a lot faster on a low bandwidth line - I know there's an updated client for XP from when Vista came out, but as far as I know the server side of the update protocol was not added into XP or 2003 server.)

And a Linux one. And while I'm not sure if they're free or not, there are iPhone/iPad and Android clients as well.

--

To the original question, I mostly use NX, which runs over SSH; I have password authentication turned off for SSH and one can only get in via a public key. When I need to get to my Windows box remotely, SSH can port-forward for it, or I can run an RDP client on the Linux server via NX.

I do something similar - tunnel VNC through SSH with password auth disabled.

On several machines at my dad's office, I just run Logmein Free.

TightVNC remains the best for me though it'll take some brains to configure. That it's open source thus accountable is key.

another nod to logmein. Free, can do everything you need, have great mobile platforms for things like ipad, iphone, android that offer excellent functionality for when your rents call you and you happen to be in a restaurant and know you can fix it in about three minutes at the table (ask first before doing during the meal. :-) )

Unfortunately, I have never found a need to move up from the free versions of this EXCELLENT software. I liked it so much, I bought the company. (okay, I picked up the stock shortly after IPO - disclaimer, still holding )

This entire post +1 ^ :)

Another vote for LogMeIn Free

LogMeIn Free - very high bandwidth use; like 20MB for a 5 min. session.
TeamViewer - more like 300k.

After spending 45 minutes on the phone with my father across the pond, trying to get Slingbox re-setup (for some odd reason the power outage brought it down), I went back to this thread, installed LogMeIn Free and in 15 minutes was up and running. :)

Then I went by and updated all passwords on the ftp server, also updated anti-virus, Adobe, god knows whats been sitting on the computer for months :)

Highly recommended!!!! ^

Add me to the list - One more Flyertalker supporting a parent across the Atlantic with LogMeIn.

FYI, Windows 7 only includes the RDP host in the Professional edition. You can't use Remote Desktop to connect to a Win 7 Home machine.

Though I use LogMeIn free on a daily basis, as well as RDP over VPN, last week I visited a client who showed me something very cool. She had bought VNC Enterprise edition for her office, and it is dramatically faster than the free VNC version. Then she connected with the VNC app on her iPhone ($10 extra), and it was amazingly fast also. Very cool.