Help using Remote Desktop Connection

Fibonacci

I am having trouble connecting to my home computer using remote desktop connection, and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions?

Have installed Remote Desktop on my Home Computer and ‘Away’ laptop, but I am having difficulty connecting to the home computer. I am not too sure what to type in the ‘Computer Name’ window. The home computer is connected to Eircom Broadband and as far as I know has a static IP, or a least has had the same IP for the time I have been trying to connect with it.

I have tried:
1) IP Address
2) IP Address/computer name
3) IP Address/workgroup name/computer name

But still get the same message: ‘The client could not connect to the remote computer. Remote connection might not be enabled or the computer might be too busy to accept new connections. It is also possible that network problems are preventing connections to this computer’

If anyone has any suggestions, I’d be very grateful.

Thanks.

Software:
Both computers running Windows XP Professional.

fatherdougalmag

Try LogMeIn.com instead. Much simpler to work with. Gets around firewalls and everything.

shabbyroad

it's a bit tricky - I managed to set it up but it only worked once for me so I stopped trying...

you will need to know the IP of your DSL modem - there is software/services available that let you create a URL that will track your IP so you don't have to remember it (and if you've got a dynamic IP address like most of us you'll find www.dyndns.org useful).

Then you'll need to enable incoming connections to your home PC and will almost certainly have to open some ports or redirect them. That's where it all got a bit hazy for me... lots of contradictory information....

good luck !

Ripwave

Fibonacci wrote:

I am having trouble connecting to my home computer using remote desktop connection, and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions?

Have installed Remote Desktop on my Home Computer and ‘Away’ laptop, but I am having difficulty connecting to the home computer. I am not too sure what to type in the ‘Computer Name’ window. The home computer is connected to Eircom Broadband and as far as I know has a static IP, or a least has had the same IP for the time I have been trying to connect with it.

I have tried:
1) IP Address
2) IP Address/computer name
3) IP Address/workgroup name/computer name

But still get the same message: ‘The client could not connect to the remote computer. Remote connection might not be enabled or the computer might be too busy to accept new connections. It is also possible that network problems are preventing connections to this computer’

If anyone has any suggestions, I’d be very grateful.

Thanks.

Software:
Both computers running Windows XP Professional.

You don't say how you're connected to the Internet. IOL and Eircom both provide a Router that uses Network Address Translation to allow you to share the connection between 2 or more PCs. (The PCs will use a 192.168.something IP address locally). This also protects your PCs from unwanted intrusions from the outside, by making it impossible for an attacker to reach your machine directly from the Internet. The flip side is that it makes it impossible for a friend to reach directly into your machine too.

To fix this, you would have to open the appropriate ports on your router. Of course, that means that they'll be open to any worm or other attack that is trying to exploit the RDP protocol.

According to this page you need to open port 3389 on your router to allow an inbound connection.

You can check your "real" IP address here. (That's the actual address that your DSL modem is using, before any Address translation occurs. Your laptop would have to send a Remote Desktop request to that address, and the Modem would have to be configured to forward that request to the RDP process on your Desktop for the whole process to work).

(I'm assuming that the laptop is not on the same network as the Home PC, and that you're trying to get this working from "outside". If the laptop is actually on the same LAN as the Home PC, and Remote Desktop still isn't working, then you need to fix the firewall settings on the Home PC first).

Tom Dunne

In addition to what Ripwave has stated - open a command prompt and try the following:

ping remote computer ip address - can you even see the remote computer. If not, then there is your problem.

If you can, do a tracerte remote computer ip address - this will help you see how far you can get. (tracerte = trace route)

leonlafrite

I would recommend that you use www.gotomypc.com
This is a very good service.