Remote PC Access Options

0 Comments | Rating: 0 | |

Have you ever wanted to access a PC remotely? Maybe you were on the road and needed to do some work on your office PC. Or maybe you were trying to collaborate with a co-worker and the phone conversation you were having just wasn't cutting it.

In the past, the only way to access a PC was to be in front of it. But now, there are several options for remotely accessing a PC.

Remote Desktop

If you have a recent version of Microsoft Windows, Remote Desktop is probably already installed. Remote Desktop lets you make your Windows desktop available over the network. All you do is start the service on the computer you want to access, then login from the remote machine.

There are even clones of Remote Desktop for other operating systems, such as Linux, so you can, for example, use Remote Desktop to access a Windows desktop from a Linux machine.

VNC

Even before Remote Desktop was included with Windows, VNC was already providing remote access to PCs. Using VNC is similar to Remote Desktop -- you start the server on the PC you want to access, then login remotely using the VNC Viewer.

VNC's server component includes a mini web server, which lets you open the viewer as a Java applet using just about any web browser. This is useful, for example, if you don't have VNC installed on the other PC.

VNC is Open Source, and is available free of charge. It also is natively supported on Linux and other OSes. VNC is probably your best choice if you need to connect with several different operating systems.

GoToMyPC

GoToMyPC is a web-based service that lets you access your PC remotely from anywhere. After you download and install the program on the computer you need to access, you simply login to the website and use the web-based client to connect remotely. GoToMyPC is secure, and works across firewalls, making GoToMyPC one of the easiest ways to access a PC remotely.

Unlike RemoteDesktop or VNC, however, GoToMyPC isn't free. To access a single PC, you'll have to shell out $14.95 a month. The cost per PC is slightly lower if you add multiple PCs to your plan.