remote access

Clarifications

First, you have to have your DC configured to allow remote access to the network. This is usually configurable through Group Policy. But if it is configured, you could possibly open a web browser and type https://ser.ver.ipad.dress/Remote That is a way that I get to my jobs network.

Here is what you need to have.

1. Broadband access to the internet on your home PC, preferrably cable modem access to ensure your PC is always connected to the internet.

2. A good broadband router that also works as a firewall and proxy. Many consumer brand routers do this, such as Linksys, DLink, Belkin, and US Robotics just to name a few.

3. You need to enable Remote Desktop on your home machine and password protect the account you will be using. If you currently auto login to XP without a password, this won't do, as RDP will require your account to have a password for security reasons.

4. You will need to assign your home PC a static IP address on the private LAN network that you setup, as DHCP is the default and this won't work too well when you setup network address translation in the next steps. Most routers default to a 192.168.0.0 network with a 24 bit network mask (255.255.255.0). The router will be 192.168.0.1 usually, so you can make your PC 192.169.0.2 through 254.

5. You will need to setup network address translation and port forwarding on your router to allow TCP port 3389 to be redirected to the internal static IP address of your PC. Basically, you'll use the Remote Desktop application with console switch (mstsc.exe /console) from your work PC to RDP to the public IP address assigned to your router from your ISP. If your public IP changes often, you'll need to know what it is at that point (http://www.whatsmyipaddress.com can show you this info), but most cable modem services keep assigning you the same address from what I've noticed. The RDP traffic over TCP port 3389 will be captured by your router's WAN interface and redirected to the private IP address of your PC over the same TCP port 3389, effectively connecting you to your home PC over Remote Desktop Protocol.

All you're really doing here is passing TCP port 3389 RDP traffic from the public WAN interface to the private interface of your router and directing it towards your PC.

Sometimes it is easier to avoid altering the firewall or if the client OS does not support RDP to use an application like LogMeIn. It is secure and very simple to setup. Also there is a free version that may meet your needs..

https://secure.logmein.com/home.asp?lang=en

What is the kind of setup that your workplace has? Also, what kind of connection is being used at home? If anything other than broadband is used, the results may be slow.

There was a user here who does what you want to do on a daily basis. Everyday, she was at the office for half of the day. She was at her home the rest of the time. This was to accomodate the care of her child according to her. Both the computer at work and the computer at home had WinPro installed, so she could have easily used the Remote Desktop part of Windows. But she wanted to transfer files remotely also. Why the transfer of files was desired is beyond me. But anyways, she ended up using GoToMyPC. If you want to transfer information between computers, a workaround is to email the data, if the data is not too large for your email. Why that was not considered by her is beyond me too.