Hi there
quick question
are these computers all on the same LAN or are some connecting remotely.
For REMOTE connections two scenarios
1) You are trying to connect to a remote computer say from home
In this case you either need the remote computers host name or IP address and the REMOTE computer must have enabled Remote access allowed in the control panel.
2) You are trying to reach a computer say at home from work / Uni etc. You need also to allow remote access on your home computer. You will need also to have it at a FIXED IP address on your LAN say 192.168.0.8 or 192.168.2.8 .
You can do this via the network settings -- you can still leave DHCP enabled on the router but you need a fixed IP address on your LAN since you have to allow "Port forwarding" to this machine.
On the Router set port forwarding 3389 I think is the port for RDP - to be forwarded to the computer you want to access and enable the firewall to allow RDP.
We aren't quite done yet as you need to know the INTERNET IP address that your computer is seen at. This is the IP address that the service privider gives you when you use the internet -- and it's usually dynamic.
So you use a FREE service like no-ip at
No-IP - Dynamic DNS, Static DNS for Your Dynamic IP.
What happens here is that you get assigned a FREE domain name like donkeys.net (for example) and every 30 mins a program on your PC checks your IP address and updates the IP address if needed so you can always access your PC via the domain name donkeys.net
So when you connect to donkeys.net you will actually be connected to YOUR ROUTER which port forwards 3389 to your local PC at home and you can get logged on.
Note there are mechanisms for connecting to more than one machine - but you have to change the default RDP ports on each machine and if you are in a place that blocks PORT 3389 (some work places block almost every port apart from SSH and HTTP / HTTPS) you can get round this by using a process known as "Tunnelling" by using a nice free program called PUTty.
However that's beyond the scope of this post -- once you've set up one machine to work you should be knowlegeable enough to figure the rest via google etc.
(Note the REMOTE computer must also be enabled for remote access and have a known domain / IP address\and IT must also have PORT 3389 forwarded to it by IT's ROUTER).
If you are using a work VPN then that's a different issue --simply logon with the userid / password you were assigned.
Cheers
jimbo
