How do I remote desktop from Leopard to a Windows XP Pro machine?

[balamw]

Hello All. I am a new Mac Pro Owner. I would like to have access to my pc.


Now I own an xp home machine. So I put tight vnc server on it and would like to connect to the pc. I downloaded the new "Remote Desktop Connection mac"

You're barking up the wrong tree.

The client you downloaded is only useful for connecting to XP Pro, Vista Ultimate, ... XP Home (even with TightVNC) will not work with that client.

The Answer to a single question would help point in the right direction.

Are both machines on the same network, behind the same router or not.

B

 

[JoeRalat]

Yes both are on the same router

I would like to have it setup as remote desktop. I would like to view the screen and use my keyboard from my mac on the pc.

 

[err404]

http://cord.sf.net and enable remote desktop on the XP box. (Right click on my computer, Remote tab).

B

For any of you using the MS RDP client, this app is much nicer.

BTW - for the adventuresome, you can enable the RDP host on XP home with a few registry tweaks. You can find the step with Google. RDP is much nicer then VNC for connecting to windows machines.

 

[balamw]

Yes both are on the same router

I would like to have it setup as remote desktop. I would like to view the screen and use my keyboard from my mac on the pc.

You basically have two main options.

1) Upgrade to a version of Windows that already supports RDP (XP Pro, Vista Business or Ultimate) and proceed to use CoRD or Microsoft's Remote Desktop Client.

2) Stay with VNC. In which case, you'll need a VNC client like Chicken of the VNC http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/

In general 1) will be faster and can support limited sound sharing while 2) is cheaper and is more cross platform (i.e. you can VNC from the PC back to the Mac, but not RDP).

In either case you'll need to know the IP address of the Windows box to establish a connection. In order to avoid headaches, turn off the software firewall on the Windows box before attempt to connect. Make sure everything is working and only then turn the firewall back on so you can open the appropriate holes. I'd suggest opening the hole wide enough so that any machine in your local network can get it instead of specifying only the Mac's current IP or you might have trouble if your router decides to change your Mac's address for one reason or another...

B

 

[webraider]

The only "issue" I have with LogMeIn and GoToMyPC are that they are web-based services, requiring pass-through from the respective companies' servers. GTMPC in particular is a subsription (fee-based) service. LMI is free-for now.

MS Remote Desktop I feel is the best solution (assuming a clear network path between both machines), as it is a free and supported function for Windows (see attached image) and the free MS Remote Desktop client for Mac (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient). I use it professionally for accessing both the corporate servers and client servers (mostly Win2K3), and is seamless, clean, reliable, and pretty much bulletproof.

Leopard's Screen Sharing (Mac-to-Mac only) is more of a RDC-type connection. Back To My Mac, well, I'm not sure yet if that requires a live connection thru .mac or not yet. If it does, then it's along the lines of GTMPC and LMI.

I have a friend who just got a new mac. He's been using Microsoft Remote Desktop but he's having a few glitches. The first is Safari. In order to get it to work, he has to "reset it" everytime, thus cleaning out the cookies etc.. He also get's "timed out" messages that he doesn't get when he connects with his PC. I don't have this program so I'm not sure what to tell him. Does anybody know what he can do to fix this problem?