comp guru peeps

[honda400ex2003]

I am wondering if i can setup a network at home and access it remotely to access a hard drive somehow without a server?

I want to use a spare laptop that i currently have to hook up an external hd and continuously run both while i am away from home to access my hd remotely from school on my regular laptop. this would enable me to access anything needed from anywhere while keeping it stored on my 2T hd at home instead of on my laptop. I currently only keep what i plan to use for school daily on it but sometimes it is nice to access my drive. I get annoyed with hooking it to my regular laptop and such just to put 10 pictures on it or something. Remote access to dump it quickly would be nice.

can i use remote desktop thats already installed to access the laptop? doing this without a server?

can i print remotely so that i have a hard copy waiting for when i get home?

I have setup a LAN at home to do printing only but i have never done a full blown remote access setup. I like having that at my house, I have not done this at my school appt yet since i dont have a spare comp there yet. I will this fall though to enable wireless printing instead of hooking it up all the time.

thanks for any advice,
steve

[honda400ex2003]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Remote-Desktop-Connection-frequently-asked-questions

this might get me started, is that all there is for doing it?

this only works for vista as the accessing comp though, not the host? can it do vista to vista? I plan to use an xp host with a vista accessing or a vista host with a 7 accessing if i get a new laptop.
I would just use my current laptop as the host at my house then after i get the new one. my current is a vista home premium. :(

steve

[DnB_racing]

we used to use pc anywere ...im not sure if you need this much acsses but it works great,

[Scottt89]

You can get a DYNDNS.org account. Then put the agent on the PC you would like to access. From there you should be able to RDP from whatever computer you are at to the Dyndns address you setup.

You can also get a logmein.com account and use their site to access whatever PC you put on the account.

[TheLane]

Also a very user friendly one is gotomypc.com

[honda400ex2003]

very cool! thanks guys.

any more info on servers or anything of that nature? im curious to find out any and all info that i can get.

steve

[honda400ex2003]

i have finally got the remote settings worked out, now i just have to figure out how to name the comps to get them to find each other.

I have to get the port setup for the remote desktop, though i forgot the number of the one that i need. does anyone know? This is for the TS gateway number i guess it is?

I am starting to figure this out a bit more but still have a bunch to learn with it. later this evening i am going to read over all of the FAQ for remote desktop that come on vista.

any ideas?
steve

[destey]

Disable hibernation and suspend, make sure screen blanking is enabled (so you don't burn your screen).

I suggest SCP or SFTP (secure copy or secure ftp). They're both an encrypted version of regular FTP (which i would not use). You can download any sftp or scp server and run it on the laptop.

First set up the firewall on your modem. There will be something in there called port forwarding or whatever terminology they use. SCP/SFTP can use port 21, 22, or 23 (actually they can use any port, these are just what people usually do). So set up your firewall to forward ports 21,22, or 23 (whichever you will be using) to the local IP address that your notebook is using (it'll be something like "192.168.x.x" or 127.x.x.x or 172.16.x.x, where the x's are numbers- these are defined all across the internet to only be used for local networks).

After your firewall/modem is set up to forward, set up the server software on the laptop. Then just use a SFTP/SCP client (most ftp software suites can do both protocols), to connect to the IP address of your modem. If you're not sure what that is, go to www.whatismyip.com

[honda400ex2003]

very cool! thanks for the info on it! I plan to mess with it again tonight.

steve

[honda400ex2003]

bump for a bit of an update finally.

I signed up to logmein.com and set up my comps that i want to remote to. That is freaking awesome! I sure hope it stays free lol. It is going to be nice to mess with them from anywhere and print stuff remotely if needed.

i am finally getting my new computer tomorrow so that will be nice! Alienware m17x r3 with some pretty nice specs on it. I cant wait to get it all setup how i want it and get everything working nicely on 7.

thanks for your help guys!
steve