Remote Desktop to My Work (office) Computer not on a Domain

[Shido151]

I have an office with two computers (Windows 7 Pro) on the same router connected by a workgroup I set up so they can share Hard Drives.

I'm trying to use remote desktop to work at home but it's not able to connect. I have the correct IP address to the office computer, and it's settings are
"Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer"
"Allow Connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop" Which I would like to change to the more secure option.


How can I set up remote desktop to work on the office computer from home?

Or,

Is their anyway I can have my Home computer join the Workgroup I created at the Office?

Thanks,
-Mike

Please note I can't use Teamviewer because if I'm not at the office, no one else will be.

 

[Kari]

Hi Mike, welcome to the Seven Forums.

The key is TCP port forwarding. At office, you need to change your router's settings by adding TCP port forwarding (by default port 3389) rule to allow RDP to connect to the destination computer.

An example: the first PC (PC1) at office has a private IP 192.168.1.100 and your router's public IP is 12.34.56.78. You need to tell the router to forward all incoming RDP connections to 192.168.1.100. Now when you give RDP at home the IP 12.34.56.78, it connects to your office router and forwards the connection to PC1 192.168.1.100.

If you need to access both office computers over RDP, you need to change the default RDP port in registry on the second PC. They cannot use the same port. The value (port number) can be found in following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber

Let's say you changed the default RDP port number 3389 on your second PC (PC2) to 3390 and it has a private IP 192.168.1.200. Once again create a TCP port forwarding rule on your office router, this time forwarding traffic from port 3390 to IP 192.168.1.200.

Using RDP from your home and simply giving the IP 12.34.56.78 will take you to PC1 which is using the default RDP port. To connect to your PC2 you need to add the non-default port after IP address, separated by colon, giving it as 12.34.56.78:3390.

See the RDP tutorial, Option Two steps 7 and 8: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3922-remote-desktop-connection-rdc-network.html.

A useful guide from Microsoft: Allow Remote Desktop connections from outside your home network.

Kari

 

[strollin]

Much easier to just use TeamViewer.