Networking ques

cubix

I have stuck a pc down in the garden shed (make the most of the BB ) and have linked it with cat5 to the house pc. All is rosy and each can see each other and share files/folders but idealy I would like to control the shed pc from the house pc. Another words be sitting at the house pc but be looking at the desktop of the shed pc. Is it just a matter of ticking something on the pc or do I need to install a progy?

Cheers

SantaHoe

It's simple enough if you're running XP on both machines.
What you're looking for is Remote Desktop Sharing.
Start >> >Programs>Accessories>Communications>Remote Desktop Connection
From there you can enter the IP address of the PC in the shed and view/control its desktop.
You'll have to setup the shed PC to allow this connection though.
There's good info on how to set all this up when you click help.

Other programs include things like PC-anywhere.

cubix

Much appreciate SantaHoe

zoro

To be honest, I'd jump on VNC for this sort of thing

Boro

Real VNC

Available for free from www.realvnc.com

highly recommended

SantaHoe

Ah yes, VNC that's the other one I was trying to think of when I was typing PC Anwhere
Whatever, it's all good.

Capt'n Midnight

If it's windows NT/2K/XP then psexec will give you a command prompt.
pskill can then be used to kill off hung programs/services

cubix

Thanks for all the suggestions could not get Ms Xp remote desktop to work but that might be due to my next question, will defo check out VNC.
The other prob I am having is I have set to share everything on the pc in the shed (:c drive/cdrom/my docs) which all worked fine until a couple of days ago but now I can only get into my docs when trying to access from the house machine. When I go into :c it wont let me into Programs/Windows/ cd-rom giving me the usual error msg, plz see link. I have un-installed all network settings and re-installed, closed down firewalls, and reset sharing rules on shed pc but no joy. Any suggestions?,

Thanks

Stephen

Does the username and password you're using to access the shared folders on the "shed" pc have administrative rights on that pc? If not, its NTFS security permissions are probably blocking you access to sensitive folders like documents and settings, program files, windows, etc.

cubix

I am not at the pc in question at the moment Stephen but as far as I remember both pc accounts are setup as admim/no passwords on either/both xp pro/both sp1. I am nearly one 100% sure I could get access to all areas before I tried to implement Ms remote desktop(without any joy)so I am not sure if this has screwed up anything, but will check later what you suggested

Cubix

Stephen

Try setting a password (same one) on the admin account on both of them.

cubix

Tried what you suggested but nothing, also for some reason this problem is affecting both pc's ie: when using shed pc am not allowed to look into windows/program folder's on house pc and like wise if using house pc cannot see into sheds windows/program folders.Tried running connection wizard but nothing, its not a big deal but would be interested why this problem is accuring?

Thanks

SantaHoe

Well the way I had it setup was - I'd setup a new administrator account on PC2 that matched exactly the username password of my current session on PC1... should in theory give you access-all-areas.

On the remote desktop thing, make sure you've done the following:
Right-click 'my computer' and open the 'remote' tab
check "allow users to connect..."
click "select remote users"
select "add", then type in the netbios name of the pc you're going to be connecting with.

cubix

Thanks SantaHoe but the problem I am having now is for some reason when the 2computers are connected via cat5 into each others nic's(and not using Remote Desktop) I cannot look into either computers windows/program folders but can view my docs. I have tick the setting for sharing c: on both pc's

SantaHoe

Yep, I understood that part of the problem... which the first two lines of my previous post was targeted at.
I'm thinking along the same lines as Stephen though... ntfs permissions and proper authentication of the remote user.
Here's another thing to try... instead of using the UNC of \\computername\C\prog[..], try using \\computername\c$ and browse from there.
Shares followed by "$" are system shares and are hidden, and as a result may be handled differently... this may be why the suggestion Stephen made works for me, but not for you... I always use the c-string style of addressing.

cubix

SantaHoe wrote:

Here's another thing to try... instead of using the UNC of \\computername\C\prog[..], try using \\computername\c$ and browse from there.
Shares followed by "$" are system shares and are hidden, and as a result may be handled differently... this may be why the suggestion Stephen made works for me, but not for you... I always use the c-string style of addressing.

Thanks SantaHoe but this is a little bit above me, whats "Unc"?

SantaHoe

Look at the attachment you posted earlier... where it says:
\\Supernova\C\Program Files

^ that's a UNC path... it's just a location of where a share is located on a network.
There's a good definition here >> http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/UNC.html

For a practical example... open windows explorer, and type this into the address bar...
\\supernova\c
After hitting enter, windows explorer will try to open the share named "c" on the computer named "supernova".
What I was saying is that your whole C:\ drive is already shared by the system for administrative purposes, but you just can't see it because there's a "$" at the end of the sharename windows uses for it.
So if you enter:
\\supernova\c$
and hit enter, you'll be accessing the "supernova" PCs C:\ drive using the systems administrative share as opposed to the one you created when you chose to share c:\ manually.
Apply this to what you see in the screenshot and it would be:
\\Supernova\C$\Program Files

Now what I'm thinking is that by using this system share, you may not be limited in accessing 'program files' or 'windows'.
Or not... but it's worth trying.
You can use UNC paths while creating shortcuts on your desktop or start menu, so it's handy to know this stuff even if it doesn't work around your specific problem

cubix

Ok thanks for the layman version, will let you know how I get on

Cubix