Use On a LAN only?

[Simon]

Hi, we've a small LAN and wonder if you can use RD just to
connect to other computers in the workgroup?
Every time I click on "Browse for more..."in the first
connect window, whilst our workgroup shows up in the
Available Computers window, when I click on our workgroup
I get the message "Your workgroup does not contain any
terminal servers".
Do you HAVE to connect over the internet (we have a shared
cable modem internet connection)? If not, then how do you
connect to a computer on your LAN? Ideally we'd like just
to enter the computer's name with none of that IP
addressing business, and presumably we could store that
connection for future use when connecting. All we want to
do is to connect to another (XP Pro) computer which is
where we back upto and primarily want to use RD to shut
down that computer afterwards (as it has no keyboard or
mouse or monitor attached so we can't operate it directly
and want to shut it down gracefully rather than just
hitting its power button).
Most grateful if any one has a clue.
P.S. Can you wake up a PC on the network with RD - all our
PCs have WOL NIC's?

 

[Bill Sanderson]

You can't browse, by default, for XP Pro machines. This can be turned on,
so if it'd make a difference in your situation, I can look up the KB article
on how to do this.

You should be able to connect directly to any machine via either the netbios
name (which is shown on the remote tab in properties of My Computer) or the
IP address. Just type them in and hit connect.

The connect and shutdown thing is very possible. Shutdown is slightly
disguised to avoid accident--bad to shutdown a machine which is hundreds of
miles away, perhaps! Anyway--in the start menu, look for Windows Security,
choose that, and then choose shutdown and get the usual set of choices
including power off.

I once heard a Microsoft staffer say here that they'd considered adding WOL
to the feature, but it didn't happen. However, WOL in your situation is
very easy to do, and can be done with batch (.cmd) files and scripted or
timed via Scheduled Jobs.

I do network admin work for a number of small office networks. I can
connect via RD to their networks, and turn on most machines, do whatever is
needed, and turn them off again when I'm done. If a bit of maintenance is
needed on several machines, I can do this more efficiently sitting at home
than I can on site, where I have to schedule time on each machine and walk
around between them.

A good resource for WOL information is www.depicus.com.

I use their command-line application, but they have a variety of apps and
useful information for learning.

Do some reading at Depicus, and try out their windows app. Then if you have
further questions, or a scenario you'd like help setting up, write back.

I tend to set up batch files to wake each machine (named by the machine or
users name) and then separate .RDP files to connect and login to each
machine.

All of these operations, both wake up and RD connections, can also be done
across the Internet--but that's another discussion!

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
Hi, we've a small LAN and wonder if you can use RD just to
connect to other computers in the workgroup?
Every time I click on "Browse for more..."in the first
connect window, whilst our workgroup shows up in the
Available Computers window, when I click on our workgroup
I get the message "Your workgroup does not contain any
terminal servers".
Do you HAVE to connect over the internet (we have a shared
cable modem internet connection)? If not, then how do you
connect to a computer on your LAN? Ideally we'd like just
to enter the computer's name with none of that IP
addressing business, and presumably we could store that
connection for future use when connecting. All we want to
do is to connect to another (XP Pro) computer which is
where we back upto and primarily want to use RD to shut
down that computer afterwards (as it has no keyboard or
mouse or monitor attached so we can't operate it directly
and want to shut it down gracefully rather than just
hitting its power button).
Most grateful if any one has a clue.
P.S. Can you wake up a PC on the network with RD - all our
PCs have WOL NIC's?
.

 

[Simon]

Wow, Bill thanks for the fully comprehensive reply!

How simple, just like you said and all works perfectly
including the shutdown (I found that if you type CTRL-ALT-
END you can shutdown the other PC from the Task Manager
window).

Only problem is with our actual PC that we really want to
RD with, where we can't get a connection. But I think that
this is probably because when we start it it's not
properly booting itself because it can't find a keyboard
or a mouse or a monitor connected. I imagine that one can
instruct it to not look for these items on bootup, maybe
in its BOS settings, so I'll do some tweaking and see if I
can overcome that little difficulty (unless you know the
answer of bat...!).

Thanks also for the links re WOL which I'll investigate.

 

[Sooner Al]

Go into the BIOS on the PC and look for an option along the lines of "When booting not Stop on
error/Stop on all errors/don't stop on error/stop on error with keyboard/etc"... I set my headless
XP Pro ICS/ICF box to "Not stop on error". The box does not have a monitor, keyboard or mouse
connected to it..

--
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...

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I think you have the right "first try" answer to the PC without the
keyboard, etc. Unless you look at the bios settings and test that out
before disconnecting everything, that isn't likely to have been checked.

 

[Simon]

Once again, it's a case of many thanks to Bill and Al.

After a lot of fiddling about with number locks etc I have
got everything as I want. Initially I couldn't remote
connect unless I manually logged on the remote PC (which
obviously I wouldn't be able to do once I had removed its
monitor, mouse and keyboard), but using Run|control
userpasswords2 I was able to get my remote PC to log on
automatically when I pushed the power button.

Only curious thing is that it is always on the fourth try
of connecting via Remote Desktop that I actually achieve
the remote connection, but now I know this no worries and
I can live with hitting the Connect icon 4 times.

All I've now got to fathom out is how to get Wake On Lan
to boot up my remote PC, but that's another story! www.
depicus.com is agonisingly economical with the realité!!

Thanks again - very impressed.

Simon

-----Original Message-----
Go into the BIOS on the PC and look for an option along

the lines of "When booting not Stop on

error/Stop on all errors/don't stop on error/stop on

error with keyboard/etc"... I set my headless

XP Pro ICS/ICF box to "Not stop on error". The box does

not have a monitor, keyboard or mouse

connected to it..

for the mutual benefit of all of us...

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I've no idea at all about the 4 tries--is the thing going to sleep, and
taking a long time to wake up??

WOL isn't too bad.

You need to know the mac address (built into the hardware of the nic on the
target machine) to wake up a given machine.

There are various methods to finding this mac address--depicus has a beta
arp viewer which is useful on larger networks, but it really is
beta--crashes all the time for me. (just the app, not windows, or the
machine!)

With XP, here's one method that works:

Open Network Connections in control panel, and right click the network
connection that you want to be able to wake via. Choose properties. Tell
it to display an icon in the notification area. Right click that icon, do
Status, support tab, details, and write down the physical address.

That and your ip subnet are what are needed to do the wake on lan stuff.

This may not be quite enough--so if you get to the point where you've got a
set of parameters you are putting in , maybe post them and we can critique.

Testing is kind of an opaque process--it helps to have some assurance that
the "magic packet" is actually getting there--depicus has an app to give you
that info, but I haven't used it.

Otherwise, if you can be reasonably sure you are generating the packet
right, then the issue is configuration or driver details on the target
machine.

If all yours are essentially clones of each other, this is hard--once you
get one, they should all work, but getting that one is the trick--maddening
until it works.

Once again, it's a case of many thanks to Bill and Al.

After a lot of fiddling about with number locks etc I have
got everything as I want. Initially I couldn't remote
connect unless I manually logged on the remote PC (which
obviously I wouldn't be able to do once I had removed its
monitor, mouse and keyboard), but using Run|control
userpasswords2 I was able to get my remote PC to log on
automatically when I pushed the power button.

Only curious thing is that it is always on the fourth try
of connecting via Remote Desktop that I actually achieve
the remote connection, but now I know this no worries and
I can live with hitting the Connect icon 4 times.

All I've now got to fathom out is how to get Wake On Lan
to boot up my remote PC, but that's another story! www.
depicus.com is agonisingly economical with the realité!!

Thanks again - very impressed.

Simon

-----Original Message-----
Go into the BIOS on the PC and look for an option along

the lines of "When booting not Stop on

error/Stop on all errors/don't stop on error/stop on

error with keyboard/etc"... I set my headless

XP Pro ICS/ICF box to "Not stop on error". The box does

not have a monitor, keyboard or mouse

connected to it..

for the mutual benefit of all of us...