Remote desktop stupid question...

[Steve H]

Just finding my way in networking so be gentle

Can remote desktop be used to let one user on an XPPro machine get at his
own desktop from a second machine while another user is also logged on
directly? I had hoped that one user could continue working in the
background in this manner, while the second user takes over the fixed
workstation screen and keyboard, but it seems one must log off for the other
to continue.

Assuming that the answer is unfortunately "no can do", I presume the file
sharing avenue is the way this is done. This however seems to require some
foreknowledge of what files one might need during any one remote session, so
that the right ones are in the shared folder in advance. Failing that, I
suppose one could put a whole user profile in the shared folder, but this
sounds a bit excessive - unless some kind of sign in is possible by this
route at it is in remote desktop?

How should I best proceed?

Thanks in advance.

S

 

[ayestyles]

Just finding my way in networking so be gentle

Can remote desktop be used to let one user on an XPPro machine get at his
own desktop from a second machine while another user is also logged on
directly? I had hoped that one user could continue working in the
background in this manner, while the second user takes over the fixed
workstation screen and keyboard, but it seems one must log off for the other
to continue.

Assuming that the answer is unfortunately "no can do", I presume the file
sharing avenue is the way this is done. This however seems to require some
foreknowledge of what files one might need during any one remote session, so
that the right ones are in the shared folder in advance. Failing that, I
suppose one could put a whole user profile in the shared folder, but this
sounds a bit excessive - unless some kind of sign in is possible by this
route at it is in remote desktop?

How should I best proceed?

Thanks in advance.

S

It is not possible to use remote desktop in the background with XP
Professional. Server editions do have this feature but not M$'s client
O/S. I believe what you are looking for is a file-sharing solution. I
am not sure why you want to share a profile but you can use the built-
in file-sharing features of XP by using the 'net use' command. If you
want to map shared folders on login then you could make a batch file
to map the drives such as:

net use s: \\computername\sharename /user:localaccount password

This would effectively map s: on any computer on the local network to
the computername and you will of course have to provide a user/ pass
to gain access.

Hope this helps.

A

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the prompt reply A.

I am a bit vague on using the run box commands, and only vaguely recall
using batch files back in the days of Dos... What exactly 'mapping the
shared folders' means, I'd have a guess at, but the dialogue seems to want
me to create a new drive 'z', and then only lets me 'browse' to files on the
same system.

At the moment, I have tried going through the network set up wizards and
running them on pc and laptop, but so far, can only access the laptop
folders from the pc. I can use the printer remotely, but am not allowed in
to the pc shared folder. On the pc, if I look at the permissions on the
shared folder, under 'locations' it only allows me to specify users who are
on the pc. If I try to write in locations on the laptop they are just
rejected. I do not see where the setting is to give permission to users on
another system, nor to set any password requirements.

On the other hand, when I tried remote desktop, I was just allowed to sign
in to my account in a near normal manner. File sharing seems to be far less
intuitive, and even though I have read around a bit, and adjusted firewall
settings, I still only seem to be able to get it to work one way - apart
from the printer.

All very basic stuff I am sure, but a bit confusing to a networking
beginner.

Thanks for your help,

S

 

[astyles]

Thanks for the prompt reply A.

I am a bit vague on using the run box commands, and only vaguely recall
using batch files back in the days of Dos... What exactly 'mapping the
shared folders' means, I'd have a guess at, but the dialogue seems to want
me to create a new drive 'z', and then only lets me 'browse' to files on the
same system.

At the moment, I have tried going through the network set up wizards and
running them on pc and laptop, but so far, can only access the laptop
folders from the pc. I can use the printer remotely, but am not allowed in
to the pc shared folder. On the pc, if I look at the permissions on the
shared folder, under 'locations' it only allows me to specify users who are
on the pc. If I try to write in locations on the laptop they are just
rejected. I do not see where the setting is to give permission to users on
another system, nor to set any password requirements.

On the other hand, when I tried remote desktop, I was just allowed to sign
in to my account in a near normal manner. File sharing seems to be far less
intuitive, and even though I have read around a bit, and adjusted firewall
settings, I still only seem to be able to get it to work one way - apart
from the printer.

All very basic stuff I am sure, but a bit confusing to a networking
beginner.

Thanks for your help,

S

To make a long story short you should create an identical username /
password on both the laptop and the computer system you are accessing
it from. Always use those accounts when logging into either. Windows
XP wants to 'secure' your data so it's hiding things from your PC when
trying to access your laptop because it doesn't know who your PC is.
When you want to use something on your laptop from your pc, the easy
way is to right click on it and 'share' it. Then you can type \
\thenameofyourlaptop (from start/run on your PC) and you will see
everything that is shared and available on your laptop. If you don't
know the name of your computer go to a dos prompt and type 'hostname',
that is the name of your computer.

A

 

[Guest]

Thanks once again: that has probably pointed me in the right direction.

Other user has other things to do at the moment so I will have to continue
the experiment tomorrow.
Will let you know how it turns out.

Cheers,

S

 

[Steve H]

Hi gain A,

(I had some complaints in another group that I was 'top posting', so hope
this is better...)

Have started again from scratch and managed to get all the m/cs on the same
group at last. However, I did discover that if I just added 'everyone' to
the pc's permissions on the shared folder, I could access it from the laptop
before I opted to start again, but this seemed a stupid way to go about
things. So I am surprised to find that when I did start again and run the
network set up wizard on both m/cs, this was indeed the way the wizard
itself set the permissions: simply adding 'everyone' to the shared folder!

There is still no way that I can see to add a permission for a particular
user only of the laptop to access the shared folder on the pc. The
locations dialogue only allows for users of the m/c that hosts the folder to
be 'added' to the permissions. How does one get it to allow for selecting
locations on another device? (A similar state exists when one tries to 'map
drive' to locations on the other device: there is no way to get to these in
'browsing' as only locations on the same device are given as options: there
seems to be no way to specify files on a different m/c.)

Apologies for continuing to fail to grasp all this. And I appreciate that
this has become a question which would have been better on a dedicated
networking group (I have scanned these for extra hints too - though the
english groups don't seem to have a 'xp-networking' basics : just web and
wireless dedicated ones.) so thanks for your continuing patience and advice.

Regards,

S

 

[Steve H]

I will be away from my mail for a week from a few hours from now, but please
do leave any further tips for me.

Thanks,

S