Remote Monitoring and repair of XP computers

[Guest]

Hi I take care of about 10 computers on a peer network (no server) that
shares a NAS to store the common data all computers access. I would like to
find a program that will allow me to login and fix the the computers remotly
while no one is there or while i am off site. I would like to also find
something that will allow me to monitor the computer in the backgroung to see
what the user is doing on the computer. If anyone knows of software that will
allow me to do this please let me know and your work with this type of
software

 

[Guest]

I would like to find a program that will allow me to login and fix the the > computers remotly while no one is there or while i am off site.

VNC will do this.

For best results on 2k/XP, also install the Mirage framebuffer driver, this
greatly improves the responsiveness.

If you want to use it offsite I'd recommend a tunneling protocol such as SSH
or Zebedee, as the VNC passwords themselves are not very secure. The
SSH/Zebedee server needs to be run on a computer which is always available,
and redirects incoming requests to the appropriate desktop. You also need a
router/firewall rule to allow this incoming connection, of course.

The other offsite option is to ue VPN to connect to your internal LAN, then
activate VNC as if you were local.

http://tightvnc.org
http://realvnc.com

The computer has to be on, of course. If it is in standby there are ways of
prodding it into action given a Wake-on-Lan network card, but if it's
completely off there is nothing you can do.

I would like to also find something that will allow me to monitor the computer > in the background to see what the user is doing on the computer.

VNC will also do this if you run it as a service with 'winvnc -install'
The karma is yours to bear, though. <g>

 

[Sooner Al [MVP]]

Hi I take care of about 10 computers on a peer network (no server) that
shares a NAS to store the common data all computers access. I would like
to
find a program that will allow me to login and fix the the computers
remotly
while no one is there or while i am off site. I would like to also find
something that will allow me to monitor the computer in the backgroung to
see
what the user is doing on the computer. If anyone knows of software that
will
allow me to do this please let me know and your work with this type of
software

If the PCs are running XP Pro or Vista Ultimate/Business/Enterprise you
could use Remote Desktop. Its built-in and works very well...

http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/RemoteDesktop/RDP6ConfigRecommendations.html
http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/RemoteDesktop/RemoteDesktopSetupandTroubleshooting.html
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/search.aspx?=&qu=remote+desktop

Vista Remote Desktop host with XP client configs...

http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/ScreenShots/XP/RDP6-XPClienttoVistaServerConfig.jpg
http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/ScreenShots/XP/RDP6-XPClientSettings.jpg

Otherwise UltraVNC works fairly well. You can download the host, client,
encryption plug-in and video driver from...

http://www.uvnc.com/index.html
http://forum.ultravnc.info/

As noted by Ian running VNC, or Remote Desktop for that matter, through a
VPN or SSH tunnel works very well and provides added security and the
possibility of strong authentication using private/public key pairs.
Personally I use SSH and recommend the copSSH installer package and the
Tunnelier SSH client. copSSH packages OpenSSH/OpenSSL/cygwin and is actively
updated and maintained as those are.

http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/Ssh/SSH-HomeUser.html

http://www.itefix.no/phpws/index.ph...er_op=view_page&PAGE_id=12&MMN_position=22:22
http://www.bitvise.com/tunnelier.html

http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/Ssh/SecureYourcopSSHServer-Vista.html
http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/Ssh/Private-publicKey-Tunnelier.html

--

Al Jarvi (MS-MVP Windows Networking)

Please post *ALL* questions and replies to the news group for the
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