How do I use Remote Connection to help Family?

Hey Everyone!

Today my father finally purchased a laptop with Windows 7 x64 after using an old Dell XP for nearly a decade, lol!

He needs obvious assistance and although I'm aware of the new Windows 7 Remote Connection capabilities, I'm totally unfamiliar with how to connect to another PC with different ISP's (I'm Comcast, he's FIOS) and in two different geographical locations.

I read one tutorial that mentioned my editing the registry to force his PC to seek a certain port but that seems like a lot for such a simple problem. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, especially with Father's Day coming up and my being incapable of a home visit.

Thank you in advance!

Most of the set up can be accomplished using the GUI these days. Although you may need to open ports on the routers firewall and make adjustments to the registry. The problem is that there are some things your Dad needs to do on his end to make the RDC connection work.

Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) - Network

Team viewer might be easier to set up if that seems too complicated. :)
http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx

That's very refreshing to hear! I know my way around Windows 7 very well but in the past have never had a use for Remote or Desktop Connections and would disable them for increased security. Before try a different program (thank you for the link) I would like to know what my father would have to do on his end to make the situation run smoothly. My sister is tech savvy and can help him out :)

Just go through the steps in Team Viewer, it explains the process in great detail, once you understand it all just send him the link so he can install it on his system. It tells you everything you need to know. It's a very popular program and is supposed to be easy to use. I believe it uses IP addresses to make the connection.

You can use the link below to look up your true WAN IP address.
http://whatismyipaddress.com/

Remote Assistance might be a better option if you have to walk him through things, as most of the others will lock him out from seeing what you are doing (not sure about Teamviewer, but RDC definitely does),

Windows Remote Assistance: frequently asked questions

If you decide to try it you can either use the one built in to Windows 7, or might be easier to use the version built into Live Messenger. At least with either of these he can see what you are doing, and you can show him where things are.

I downloaded TeamViewer and it DOES look much simpler for the needs I have. I recall TechNet having a similiar tool/program available back with Vista.

Today I used Team Viewer 5 while my parents installed the Team Viewer Quick Support. My fathers Windows 7 and mothers Vista both worked without any issues arising. I have to say that everything that I needed to do worked *flawlessly* and I am grateful for the quick and solid advice!

I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to do remote support for a friend or family member!

Thanks for the rep, and thank you for posting back that Teamviewer worked.

BugOutMachine said:

Today I used Team Viewer 5 while my parents installed the Team Viewer Quick Support. My fathers Windows 7 and mothers Vista both worked without any issues arising. I have to say that everything that I needed to do worked *flawlessly* and I am grateful for the quick and solid advice!

I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to do remote support for a friend or family member!

chev65 said:

Just go through the steps in Team Viewer, it explains the process in great detail, once you understand it all just send him the link so he can install it on his system. It tells you everything you need to know. It's a very popular program and is supposed to be easy to use. I believe it uses IP addresses to make the connection.

Team viewer might be easier to set up if that seems too complicated. :)
http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx

Everyone says that is the easier one to use which is mostly why I recommended it. I'm glad that you and your Dan found it easy to use. Hopefully someday I'll actually have a use for this program because everyone seems to be happy with it.