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Hi guys & gals

Quick questions relating to Remote Desktop in Win XP

So I've finally got round to setting up my file server without a screen as I needed the space that the CTR took up as advised in a previous topic accessing it now with a Remote Desktop Connection. Works great for my current needs. Thing is I might want to take this one step further. See over the LAN I connect no problem. But then I tried to access it over the internet from another location (work) it didn't want to connect

In theory as I understand the concept I'm supposed to be able to do this right? Just enter the IP address and the User credentials and connect? I did a quick google and think I found what I should do. LINK

So I just want to check if this is all I need to setup.

1) Setup RDC
2) Setup a Virtual Server on my router
Router is a Billion 7401VGP
Under the Virtual Server I need to set it as follow then:
App: RDC (Just enter it manually as its not listed)
Protocol: TCP
External Port: from 3389 to 3389
Redirect Port: from 3389 to 3389 (not sure default its from 0 to 0)
Internal IP: will be the IP of the Server on the LAN
3) Save it

Go to work launch RDC on my work pc enter the IP with my login credentials and then I should be able to connect right?

Am I missing something or is it as easy as that.

Still rather a n00b when it comes to anything beyond my limited networking knowledge so before I do it and muck up my setup I'll rather ask

Thanks in advance

What IP are you using to connect from work? You need to use your internet IP which is different from the IP you use from another computer at home.

I suggest to make things easier you use a free domain name service like dyndns which has a handy program you can run on your server that updates the domain to point to your correct external IP if it changes. That way instead of having to remember some long IP like 198.54.202.250 you only have to remember somesubdomainyoupick.dyndns.com instead.

make sure your computers internal address is fixed.

You also need to make sure XP is set to allow Remote Desktop connections (either be a member of the Administrators group, or a member of the Remote Desktop group ... plus have it allowed on the \"Remote\" tab of the System control panel) ... it also has to be XP Professional (XP Home won't do it except by \"invitation\")

Since it's XP, you'll only be able to do one session at a time and it will either override the current logon (kick the current user off), or take control of the current session (if the username matches the current session).

Personally, I prefer to use RealVNC with encryption active. Much easier and flexible to setup and use with plain ol' XP systems. When remoting to full server OS systems, then RDC is preferred.

RadMin is also good.

http://www.radmin.com/download/index.php

Whoa there TechPro and AlphaDoG: You might want to actually read the opening post where he said he was able to remote desktop in over the LAN. He just needs to get it working through his router/internet connection too.

You can use a freebie like Teamveiwer www.teamviewer.com

Free for personal use, and there are a few others.
I just like this one best. Works like a champ.

Whenever I set up port forwarding for windows server

I forward tcp and udp(for sound) ports to a PC with a static internal IP
3389 RDC
4125 (for using RDC webclient)

If you have Windows Firewall enabled, you might need to make sure that Remote Desktop is allowed to pass through it not just for computers on your local network, but outside it as well. I know Vista/Win7 have home/work and public checkboxes in that screen, and you may have to check both in that case, but XP from memory works a little differently. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of it around to check, and this laptop doesn't run XP Mode too well.

But, going from what I recall, there should be some settings that can do similar things. Just make sure it is also available to the outside world.

I did double-check to ensure that there aren't any other ports that RDC requires for external connections; it doesn't look like there are though. TCP is the correct protocol, 3389 is the correct port...

One thing I can suggest if none of the above helps is this site: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... TS/threads (RDC falls under the Terminal Services/Remote Desktop Services area, so the forum is still appropriate.) There are quite a few knowledgeable people there, and a situation like this should be nothing out of the ordinary for them I hope.

Krom wrote:Whoa there TechPro and AlphaDoG: You might want to actually read the opening post where he said he was able to remote desktop in over the LAN. He just needs to get it working through his router/internet connection too.

Yup. I skimmed and missed that. Bad TechPro.

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions!

I've setup the virtual server on the office router today directing it to the offices file server LAN IP. Got home entered the internet IP (will setup a dyndns a bit later Krom, currently I'm the only one using/testing this for office use so keeping it as basic as can be) entered the user name & password and whala I'm in. Cool bananas! Now obviously I forgot to email a file on the server to a college so I thought great way to test this. This is when I actually realized when I'm in this interface I'm \"ON\" the server and not my home pc thus my trying to copy the file from the server (interface) to my desktop was to no avail , yea sure you can copy and past text this way but not the file whoops!
Well as this is the file server (slow a$$ pc ) I just fired up the browser went to my webmail and mailed the file this way to the college, sweet. Did the job but now short from setting up a dedicated outlook account on the server to do this I was wondering can I RDC in on multiple pc's on our office network?

The network is the file server and a desktop for each employee.

I'd like to retain the ability to RDC in on the server itself but also my desktop (let call it PC1)

So how will I go about this?

Do I setup a second virtual server on the router pointing the same packet to port 3389 to the LAN IP of PC1 as well or do I just enter my credentials of PC1 when I log in via RDC e.g.

The file server would look like this at the moment

Internet IP

Server/Username

Password

thus what I mean

Same internet IP

PC1/Username

Password

In short I would like to access both the server and my desktop that's on the same LAN at the office via RDC from home and just need the correct settings to achieve this. Reason I need both is if I remember I need to do some maintenance or updates or things on the server I can do it from home and if I remember I still needed to do some work and stuff I can just access my desktop which will have all my running tasks I can then update at the same time. Hope I'm making sense. So far the lockout of the actual desktop when RDC'ing in isn't an issue as my idea is that only myself will have the access details for the server and the rest of the employees that need this only have the access code for there specific desktop. So there isn't really a need for multiple access to one pc at a given time.

Thanks again.

It doesn't work the way you are thinking. It is impossible to forward the same external port to two different machines through a router.

With your routers virtual server functionality you can do it for the \"desktop\" by using a different external port.
So for your LAN what you have is the \"server\" on 192.168.1.100 and the \"desktop\" on 192.168.1.200. In the router settings you would have two virtual servers enabled:
One would be external port 3389 forwarded to internal port 3389 on 192.168.1.100 \"server\".
Two would be external port 3390 forwarded to internal port 3389 on 192.160.1.200 \"desktop\".

Then in order to connect to the remote on the \"server\" you would remote into the internet IP with no port specified so it will use the 3389 default, but to remote into the \"desktop\" you would specify the non-default port 3390 by using the IP:port eg: 123.123.123.123:3390.

It is also possible to change the port that remote desktop uses, there are a ton of hits on google that detail how to do so, it is a fairly simple single value edit in the registry editor that requires a reboot to take. But given the virtual server functionality that lets you change the external port while leaving the internal one the same there is no reason to go through the trouble.

Shot Krom, thought there was something wrong in my method of thinking.

Considering my lack of knowledge in the networking department that actually do make sense to me . I'll set it up tomorrow at the office and then test it again tomorrow night at home.

Then on a side track question also relating to RDC. I'm able to connect to my home-network server over the LAN no hassles but when I try to RDC in from an other pc on the same LAN to my main desktop machine it doesn't want to take? RDC is setup the same as the server besides the obvious computer name that differs and the user name. I use exactly the same method to RDC in as what I would use on the Server but I get an error that the two pc's couldn't connect in the allowed time or some thing like that? Any ideas what would cause this to happen I can look at

Well you have to remember that a few conditions have to be met for RDC to work on a PC so you will want to check them all and make sure nothing is missing or incomplete.
On the PC you want to connect to:
1: Remote desktop has to be enabled.
2: The windows firewall (and any other firewall) has to have an exception letting RDC through.
3: There needs to be a user account with a password to log in with (all accounts without passwords are automatically disabled).

Given that it is timing out, its probably either 1 or 2, but its also possible that the computer you are using to try and connect can't resolve the computer name to an IP, so it is worth typing in the IP instead of the name when trying to connect.

if the server was server 2003/2008 it is easy if they (pcs)are connected to the server domain using the web interface

the other way is forwarding variations of the RDC ports for each pc then each cleint just uses a variation of the ip in the RDC ip address field
(granted no other application requires them)

ie (using the real ip of course)
192.169.169.1 (default for the server)
192.169.169.1:3390 (client 1)
192.169.169.1:3391 (client 2)
so on and so forth, but it's time consuming to set up because every pc must be touched and configured unlike using a domain

If you have clipboard redirection enabled it should be possible to copy files from the RDC session to your client PC - but that feature may not have been present for Windows XP, so you might have to do without. Ditto drive redirection (similar story, but it lets you interact with drives on the client machine from the RDC session). E-mail is a decent enough workaround for smaller files. (Though even on Windows 7 I haven't always found clipboard redirection to work with multi-gigabyte files.)

you can connect local resources to remote machines - hit the option button and go from there.

Shot got the office all sorted now. Setup all the virtual servers on the router and they all work

I'll look into setting up a dyndns account this weekend to create a DNS for the office as remembering a dynamic IP wont do me much good once the router reboots for what ever reason . Just to check if I'm right, if I do this then instead of entering the IP in the RDC login I will enter the dns e.g. xyz.dyndns.org and where the non default ports are applicable it will be xyz.dyndns.org:3390?

I'll also look into entering the LAN IP instead of the computer name for my issue I have RDC'ing in on my main pc over the LAN.

FireFox wrote:Just to check if I'm right, if I do this then instead of entering the IP in the RDC login I will enter the dns e.g. xyz.dyndns.org and where the non default ports are applicable it will be xyz.dyndns.org:3390

Correct.

Okay I'm still baffled to why I can't RDC in on my main Desktop

RDC have been enabled.
Windows firewall is setup identical to the Server and other pc's I'm able to RDC in, I've even altered it to on the LAN setting where there is a tag vir RDC that weren't ticked no go, I even disabled the firewall to check if it is the firewall and still no go.
And a user account is setup with a password.

What happens when I try to RDC in the main desktop locks me out and goes to the login screen, the pc with RDC then opens the window gives me the login console and then when I enter the password it tries to login and after a while gives me the timeout message. The when I try to login on my main rig again the mouse is disabled and when I use tab to go and enter my password it give me a message that there is session currently in use trying to connect disconnect or delete and can't login and I'm forced to reboot the machine.

I've even tried entering the LAN IP and still no go.

What could possible be blocking the connection on my main desktop? The only main different applications I'm running on the desktop that's not running on the other pc's I can connect with is Spybot, Malwarebytes, a Webcam and TV card application.

In that list the only application I can think of that might cause a problem is Malwarebytes that it is for some odd reason blocking my IP from the remote pc but why would it block an LAN IP? Doesn't make sense I'll disable it later and try again to see whether or not it might be the application blocking RDC just currently busy with some tasks on the desktop that needs to finish first

But any ideas or suggestions I might look at other than the above. I'm also no sporting a dual screen setup but this problem occurred even before this setup I don't see how a dual screen setup will hamper a RDC session other than a really wide and narrow window screen in the session

Honestly...without a doubt like I mentioned above......

each pc you plan on RDC into needs to have a different port unless you use a domain server (which you obviously have not mentioned). I could care less if it's access for PC's inside or outside your network (outside you'll forward the correct ports to each pc)

The only machine that should keep the default port is The Standard PC you have assigned Server Duties for ease of connection.

Step 1

Step 2

Now when you choose not to follow an established criteria then go here