Difficulty Level
Intermediate (at most - follow the directions and documentation and even a persistent beginner can do this)
What you can do
Access your PC from anywhere on the planet and control it remotely.
How to do it
There are 3 basic steps that are outlined in extreme detail in other tutorials here at Renegade Minds. The following is a quick summary.
You need to have 3 things:
- RealVNC installed on your PC (http://www.realvnc.com)
- A DDNS client on your PC
- RealVNC installed on the remote computer
Step 1: Install the RealVNC software on your computer and set it up to run as a server and as a Windows service. See the documentation in RealVNC for this.
Step 2: Get a DDNS client running on your computer. There are lots of them, and some are free. TZO.com is a top quality one that you can pay for, but No-IP.com will give you a subdomain for free and their paid services are also top notch. See http://www.tzo.com or http://www.no-ip.com for details and how to set it up.
Step 3: Install RealVNC on the computer you want to access your PC from and set it up as a client. Point it to the domain name you chose when you signed up for a DDNS service with the login information you chose when you setup RealVNC on your PC.
Make sure that you are running RealVNC and the DDNS software on your PC. This is best done as a service. On the remote PC, you can now run the RealVNC client software and connect to your PC remotely and do anything you want on it.
Why do it?
- You can't afford the cost of server software at home.
Terminal Services is mediocre compared to RealVNC.
- You need to access your PC remotely.
- You have special software on your PC that you can't install elsewhere for licensing reasons or hardware reasons.
- You like free things.
- You don't want to pay $199.95 for Symantec's PC Anywhere software
- You know that PC Anywhere is a heavy piece of sh1+ware.
- You realize that $19.95 per month or $179.95 per year for GoToMyPC is a bloody rip off.
- You are really bored and have nothing else to do.
Seriously, you can download, install and configure RealVNC in 5~10 minutes on any PC. it runs on Windows, Linux, and Solaris. You can get a DDNS client for almost any OS. And you can do that for free. Paying for it with ZERO benefit does not make sense. Just follow the directions from RealVNC and the DDNS client, and you'll be fine. This is not rocket science. Even a persistent beginner can do this.
Cheers,
Renegade