need help setting up a headless Xp Box

[dazed]

Hi Guys,

Here what id like to do and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.

i want to connect my canon mp530 printer and some usb drives to my XP Pro box and put them in a closet so i can wirelessly print from my mac as well as access my drives.

Now, I don't want to have to use a monitor on this xp box so whats the best way to remotely connect to it ? I think XP has something built in but haven't used it yet. Are there any good (and cheap) third part solutions ?

Thanks

[GimmeSlack12]

TightVNC Server, and any kind of FTP server will work out well (for the PC). That is how I control the PC's in my home (VNC). It's pretty easy to setup and you can use the VNC client: Chicken of VNC on your Mac.

[Digitalflick]

I use RCD, it is faster for me than VNC

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherpr...edesktopclient

[live4ever]

I'd say Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) or CoRD.

[4JNA]

Originally Posted by dazed

i want to connect my canon mp530 printer and some usb drives to my XP Pro box and put them in a closet so i can wirelessly print from my mac as well as access my drives.

Now, I don't want to have to use a monitor on this xp box so whats the best way to remotely connect to it ? I think XP has something built in but haven't used it yet. Are there any good (and cheap) third part solutions ?

Thanks

as all above, RDC & VNC for desktop control. to setup RDC on xp pro, your account needs to be an administrator account and have a password first, then right click on 'my computer', click the 'remote' tab, and select 'allow users to connect...' under remote desktop. click ok to save/exit.

the RDC client software for Mac can be found at the links above on the microsoft site. i would recommend setting the pc to a static ip as it makes remote connections easier, and set the pc firewall to only allow LAN/local connections to keep things safe(r).

only other thought for the moment is that your printer connects to the pc via USB, and sharing a USB connected printer can be a problem. if it's already working, great. if not, i had several customers who decided a cheap wireless print server was worth not needing to fight with printers every day. best of luck.

[dazed]

thanks for the feedback,

I tried tightVNC and found it very slow. At the moment im trying out jollysfastvnc and RealVNC. so far so good.

I will give the others mentioned a try as well though.

[balamw]

Originally Posted by dazed

thanks for the feedback,

I tried tightVNC and found it very slow. At the moment im trying out jollysfastvnc and RealVNC. so far so good.

I will give the others mentioned a try as well though.

Remote Desktop Protocol is a LOT more responsive than any VNC, and is built in to XP Pro. Do give it a try, even if you choose to use CoRD instead of Microsoft's client.

B

[dazed]

I tried RDC and liked it as it gave me audio as well.

I think i still prefer jollysfastvnc for the moment because it allows a half size window which allows me to keep an eye on xp without cramping my screen and also doesn't log off whatever user the xp box is logged in as.

Im amazed how easy they all were to set up, I was expecting lots of painfully cryptic errors

[4JNA]

Originally Posted by dazed

...i still prefer jollysfastvnc for the moment because it allows a half size window...

for the window size issue, you can change the size of the actual windows desktop to something smaller (800x600, 1024x768) and it will match that size when you log on using RDC. you can also start RDC, then click on 'options', click the display tab and have it scale to something smaller if you don't want to change the desktop.

glad it all worked out.