Layman's terms please

[noob1111]

Ok, I have read through many of the discussions so please don't post a link to another thread. What I want to do is be able to remotely connect to my home computers when I go on vacation in a week. I understand how to set up the connection while on the same local network, meaning when we have 2 computers at the same location under the same router I can remotely connect easily. But how to I do it when I am 2,000 miles away. I need very basic step by step help please. I am using windows 7 ultimate.
Do I need to set up a DNS (whatever that is)?
Do I need to use something like gotomypc.com?
Do I need to adjust something?

Please let me know as simply as you possible can. I'm not very computer literate.

 

[DC187]

One quick easy solution would be to use logmein https://secure.logmein.com
You create an account
Visit the website on the two PC's you wish to access remotely, goto My Computers and select to add a computer, then select to install the free version of logmein.
This now means to access your two PC's remotely you just visit the logmein site and select the computer you wish to remote control.

There are other ways of doing this but will involve going into the subject at a deeper technical level.

 

[Kari]

Hello Noob, welcome to the Seven Forums.

I see no point re-typing the content of this tutorial from our excellent Tutorials section only because you don't want to have any links.

Read the tutorial.

Kari

 

[FuturDreamz]

Hello Noob, welcome to the Seven Forums.

I see no point re-typing the content of this tutorial from our excellent Tutorials section only because you don't want to have any links.

Read the tutorial.

Kari

7. Remote Desktop Connection behind a router (Single computer)
A) Configure your router's port forwarding to allow connections on port 3389
B) Now in RDC just type the IP address supplied by your ISP

this I believe needs to be expanded and explained, as according to what noob1111 says, RDC for within the network is already set up and just want to figure out how to connect from off the network.
if we knew what the router was (eg, D-Ling wrtg 54), we could give you the instructions, noob1111.

 

[noob1111]

the router is netgear wireless G.

And thanks IceFire because I did look at that tutorial.

I guess in the end the problem may be that while remotw access is possible with Windows 7, it is not as convenient as I had thought. Meaning I can connect while in the same household, while accessing internet through the same router. But if I go somewhere outside the Local Area Network then Windows 7 does not allow easy accessibility to remote access. Is this basically the case? In that tutorial that Kari posted I don't know what the hell they are talking about when they say

"A) For each computer you want to remotely connect to you have to configure each computer to listen to different ports to avoid port conflicts by changing the registry key in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber".

Maybe this means that I have no business trying to set up remote access the way I want it. However it was my understanding that Windows 7 made this process easy.

 

[chev65]

the router is netgear wireless G.

And thanks IceFire because I did look at that tutorial.

I guess in the end the problem may be that while remotw access is possible with Windows 7, it is not as convenient as I had thought. Meaning I can connect while in the same household, while accessing internet through the same router. But if I go somewhere outside the Local Area Network then Windows 7 does not allow easy accessibility to remote access. Is this basically the case? In that tutorial that Kari posted I don't know what the hell they are talking about when they say

"A) For each computer you want to remotely connect to you have to configure each computer to listen to different ports to avoid port conflicts by changing the registry key in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber".

Maybe this means that I have no business trying to set up remote access the way I want it. However it was my understanding that Windows 7 made this process easy.

You said: But if I go somewhere outside the Local Area Network then Windows 7 does not allow easy accessibility to remote access. Is this basically the case?

Is completely untrue, if you can read and follow instructions you can connect remotely. As always a certain amount of computer know how will be required. It's one of those deals, once you do it the first time it's easier after that.

Those turtorials make it easy in my opinion but if you have parts of the tutorial you don't understand just post the relevent picture or topic and we can help you with it.

 

[noob1111]

Ok, good to hear, i'm regaining confidence here.

Here is the section that I want to know about:

7. Remote Desktop Connection behind a router (Single computer)

A) Configure your router's port forwarding to allow connections on port 3389
B) Now in RDC just type the IP address supplied by your ISP


Does "remote desktop connection behind a router (single computer)" mean that these are the steps I should take if I want to use 1 single computer as my host to which any computers I choose can connect?

Next question is how do I "Configure your router's port forwarding to allow connections on port 3389" ????

Thanks!
​

 

[chev65]

Depends on which router you have, the procedure is a bit different depending on the brand. This type of info can be easily looked up for your particular router. I can look it up for you if I knew what brand of router you have? I have no idea at this point.

Setting up port forwarding on your router will allow you to connect to any computer on your network from a remote computer, depending on the settings and IP used you can choose which computer you want to get into remotely.

 

[DC187]

Maybe it would help to understand why you have this problem.

Your internet connection has a single IP address.
When your internal network traverses the router out to the internet, Network Address Translation (NAT) takes place, this means that any machine on your internal network will be sharing the single IP address of your external network.
Thus if you go the other way there is no way of determining which machine traffic will be sent to.

There are a few ways around this of course:
- Request a pool of static IP Addresses from your ISP and setup Network Address Translation so PC's you specify can have their own external IP address. No doubt a pricey option and not many home class ISP's provide pools of IP Addresses.
- Use a router with Port Address Translation (PAT), this means you can setup a port on the external interface to translate to a different port on the internal network. So for example you could open up port 3389 to 192.168.1.10, open port 3390 and apply PAT to 3389 to 192.168.1.20
- Use the above tutorial and port forward the appropriate ports
- Use a service like logmein which is completely free and effortless to setup and doesn't require you to modify anything.

I hope that makes sense and hasn't confused further.

 

[FuturDreamz]

I'm pretty sure the router is a "netgear wireless g" but is it a wgt624 or a wtr614l or what?
it should say on the bottom or on the front, and it should be a large size text similar to wtr614l or wgt 624 or something

 

[chev65]

Maybe it would help to understand why you have this problem.

Your internet connection has a single IP address.
When your internal network traverses the router out to the internet, Network Address Translation (NAT) takes place, this means that any machine on your internal network will be sharing the single IP address of your external network.
Thus if you go the other way there is no way of determining which machine traffic will be sent to.

There are a few ways around this of course:
- Request a pool of static IP Addresses from your ISP and setup Network Address Translation so PC's you specify can have their own external IP address. No doubt a pricey option and not many home class ISP's provide pools of IP Addresses.
- Use a router with Port Address Translation (PAT), this means you can setup a port on the external interface to translate to a different port on the internal network. So for example you could open up port 3389 to 192.168.1.10, open port 3390 and apply PAT to 3389 to 192.168.1.20
- Use the above tutorial and port forward the appropriate ports
- Use a service like logmein which is completely free and effortless to setup and doesn't require you to modify anything.

I hope that makes sense and hasn't confused further.

The only problem he is having is understanding the turtorial for setting up remote access and setting up port forwarding on his router page. Looks like you missed the part about using laymen's term's? We are trying to keep this as simple as possible thanks, there is no need to do any of things you just described in order for remote access to work. You are only overcomplicating something that is made to be very simple. Lets stick to breaking down the tutorial if you don't mind.

 

[DC187]

Maybe it would help to understand why you have this problem.

Your internet connection has a single IP address.
When your internal network traverses the router out to the internet, Network Address Translation (NAT) takes place, this means that any machine on your internal network will be sharing the single IP address of your external network.
Thus if you go the other way there is no way of determining which machine traffic will be sent to.

There are a few ways around this of course:
- Request a pool of static IP Addresses from your ISP and setup Network Address Translation so PC's you specify can have their own external IP address. No doubt a pricey option and not many home class ISP's provide pools of IP Addresses.
- Use a router with Port Address Translation (PAT), this means you can setup a port on the external interface to translate to a different port on the internal network. So for example you could open up port 3389 to 192.168.1.10, open port 3390 and apply PAT to 3389 to 192.168.1.20
- Use the above tutorial and port forward the appropriate ports
- Use a service like logmein which is completely free and effortless to setup and doesn't require you to modify anything.

I hope that makes sense and hasn't confused further.

The only problem he is having is understanding the turtorial for setting up remote access and setting up port forwarding on his router page. Looks like you missed the part about using laymen's term's?

Apologies if I missed the point, but it seems alot of effort is going into this thread with not much progress, I've made two posts for a quick and easy yet secure method of achieving the desired goal.
I often go off on a tangent sometimes

 

[chev65]

I only made two posts, one of them was to find out which model of router is being used so we can find him a port forwarding page to make it easy as possible to set up port forwarding.

Not much effort on my part so far but I believe I'am getting right to the point.

 

[FuturDreamz]

Instructions for configuring port forwarding for most netgear routers
with this you connect to your home network with RDC and it goes directly to the computer being controlled.

 

[chev65]

Instructions for configuring port forwarding for most netgear routers
with this you connect to your home network with RDC and it goes directly to the computer being controlled.

I was trying to get the exact model because you can look up the exact same page that would show up on the router page for that model but this is better than nothing for sure.

 

[Barman58]

What I would suggest is take a look at Teamviewer, it works exactly the same if your 2 feet or 2000 miles apart and is totally free for personal use

TeamViewer - Free Remote Access and Remote Desktop Sharing over the Internet

 

[Damob9k]

Hi Noob1111,

I would have to say it's a +1 for what DC187 suggested. (logmein)

I think it is best if I lay out the pros and cons for both methods and YOU can make a choice.

RDP is brilliant, there is nothing out there that beats it in any department, In a corporate environment and at home (I use all the time to connect into my laptop and my theatre PC to configure and maintain them, and spend most of my day using it at work, logging into multiple servers)

But:
If you want to use RDP from outside of your home network, you will need a static IP address for your router (else you would have to use a dynamic dns service) , and if you wanted to connect to more than one PC you would either have to change one of the PC's RPD port, or use NAT / PAT as mentioned before.

The other and more relevant point is that... Many places block the RDP port from use, I travel around a fair bit and this is quite often the case, so having remote RDP setup can sometimes be pointless.

Now logmein which I believe you can still get for free (but don't quote me on that) , is a perfectly good solution and works very very well (I actually use it a fair bit to connect into most of my family's PC's) And the only configuring you have to do is to go to the web site, download the client software and basically your done.

The advantage with logmein is that it just uses normal internet protocol (http) so you don't need to configure NAT on your router because of course it is already there for your interweb !!

So my personal advice would be to just use logmein (or other similar services) as what you are looking for is only a temporary thing.

hope that helps you to decide which route you want to go down.

Cheers

Damob

 

[noob1111]

Chev. The router is wgr614 v9.

Are the changes I'm going to make going to be to the host computer or to the computers I want to use while away?

Meaning am I making changes to the computer I am connecting TO or connecting FROM?

Thanks SO MUCH everybody for all your help. this is going to be huge if we can get this to work.

Thanks!!