Remote Desktop Software

[EricBrian]

Does anybody know of free or cheap software that will enable me to remotely work on my win xp (home edition and not pro) from my mac?

I don't have windows xp pro so I don't have the remote desktop software that comes with it.

Thanks for any input.

 

[grapes911]

Look into VNC. There are various versions (some free and some not). I don't know much more than that though.

 

[strydr]

VNC is the way to go as a replacement for RDC. RealVNC for the PC, Chicken of the VNC for the Mac. Just know, if you'r connecting over the WAN, things are a bit choppy (unless you have a lot of bandwidth). I use something different though. KDX is a cross-platform client/server setup. Very light on the CPU, and very easy to use. It also give me access to file transfer, chat, and multi-user support (with approp. permissions) without having to create accounts/ACL's on the computer. KDX suffers from the same slowness when running full screen desktop, but I like the other features enough to prefer it over VNC.

 

[balamw]

Just know, if you'r connecting over the WAN, things are a bit choppy (unless you have a lot of bandwidth).

The slowness comes from the fact that VNC draws the screen as a bunch of small bitmaps rather than using the native GDI calls that RDP does, which makes RDP so much more usable over low bandwidth connections.

One nice feature of VNC, is that many apps (e.g. MATLAB) that will not run under remote desktop work fine under it.

A while back I had found a really neat application which was basically a scaled back version of Terminal Services, it used the RDP protocol and served 4 virtual desktops from 1 Windows 2000 box. It wasn't horrible expensive at the time. I'll see if I can find a link to it.

B

 

[EricBrian]

Thanks all for the help.

I downloaded VNC and it seems to be running find on my win box but when I try to connect to it using Chicken of the VNC, it times out.

 

[EricBrian]

My bad... I couldn't connect because my win firewall was preventing me from connecting. I it connects now nicely.