Do it myself or hire someone?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rebecca
  • Start date Start date
R

Rebecca

I am trying to pitch to my 80 year old boss that once I have my baby in Sept
I can start working part time from home.

We are a small office with 4 computers, all running XP Pro, connect wireless
to a router with a DSL connection
At home my computer is running xp with office professional, with cable
internet.

I have a few questions:
1- Is it easy enough and possible for me to set up "remote desktop" ? When
I called the company that does all of our computer and IT work, it would
cost about $500 - $600 to set this up for me, that is not in the budget.

2 - What information do I need to set up remote desktop? What info should I
gather and have ready to set it up? like IP addresses? Computer names? IP
phone number?

3 - Do I or should I use VPN and then set up the remote desktop?

Thank you in advance, I am just trying to get information so that when I
pitch it to my boss I will know or act like I know what I am talking about.

Rebecca S.
 
Answers inline..

Reply to NEWSGROUP!
I am trying to pitch to my 80 year old boss that once I have my baby
in Sept I can start working part time from home.

We are a small office with 4 computers, all running XP Pro, connect
wireless to a router with a DSL connection
At home my computer is running xp with office professional, with cable
internet.

I have a few questions:
1- Is it easy enough and possible for me to set up "remote desktop"
? When I called the company that does all of our computer and IT
work, it would cost about $500 - $600 to set this up for me, that is
not in the budget.
Click to expand...

What exactly are they setting up? If you can setup the router to forward
certain port requests to a given computer (3389 if you were doing just one
computer) and you know the IP (Internet IP) of the router, then you are
pretty much done.
2 - What information do I need to set up remote desktop? What info
should I gather and have ready to set it up? like IP addresses?
Computer names? IP phone number?
Click to expand...

If you are setting up more than one of the computers to be used remotely,
you will need them to essentially be setup with Static IPs (likely internal
IPs - as you said you have a router) and then on the router itself, forward
the port requests incoming to it to the computers.. In other words..

Port 3389 to the router forwards to Computer 1
Port 3390 to the router forwards to Computer 2
Port 3391 to the router forwards to Computer 3
Port 3392 to the router forwards to Computer 4

You can probably search the web for the router in question with the words
"port forwarding" in the search as well and find the procedure for your
router. Of course, this means you, not your over-charging IT support, has
access to the router.

And you change the listening port for Remote Desktop on each host computer
(1,2,3,4) appropriately using this article:

How to change the listening port for Remote Desktop
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=306759

And you can then connect to the computers from outside using this format:

ip.of.the.router:port#ofcomputeryouwant

3 - Do I or should I use VPN and then set up the remote desktop?
Click to expand...

No need in this case, in my opinion.
 
In addition to Shenan's comments, here is a page that illustrates how to access multiple PCs behind
a firewall/NAT/router with Remote Desktop...

http://members.cox.net/ajarvi/RemoteDesktop/Multiple_PC_RD.html

--
Al Jarvi (MS-MVP Windows Networking)

Please post *ALL* questions and replies to the news group for the mutual benefit of all of us...
The MS-MVP Program - http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights...
 
I am not needing to access multi computers.. Just my work station.

Our computers here at work are set up with wireless conection and then we
have shared folders to where we can obtain info that we choose to share from
our computer.

I have no need to access anyone elses computer. I will need to access my
work computer from my home computer. No one else in the office will need to
do this.

Rebecca S.
 
Then you simply need to forward TCP Port 3389 through the router to the LAN IP of your work desktop.
Your work desktop should be using a "static IP" for this to work reliably...

http://www.portforward.com/networking/static-xp.htm

Call the work PC, from home, using the public IP of the router...

What router?

http://www.portforward.com/routers.htm

Note the Remote Desktop link is natively encrypted so if you use a "strong" password security should
not be an issue...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mobility/getstarted/remoteintro.mspx

If your office ISP assigns a dynamic IP to the router, then one solution is to setup an account with
one of the dynamic naming services that map a fully qualified domain name to the Comcast IP. In my
case I use a FREE service from No-IP.com. The No-IP.com software runs on my XP Pro box and on a time
schedule basis contacts the No-IP.com servers. The No-IP.com servers then know what your IP is and
maps that to a fully qualified domain name. That information is then propagated over the public
internet. You could then call the client PC using the fully qualified domain name. It works very
well for me when I call my home network using Remote Desktop.

http://www.no-ip.com

Others, some free and some $$$$...

http://www.remotenetworktechnology.com/ow.asp?Remote_Network_Home/Connections

--
Al Jarvi (MS-MVP Windows Networking)

Please post *ALL* questions and replies to the news group for the mutual benefit of all of us...
The MS-MVP Program - http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights...
 
Back
Top