help: remote desktop

Hi all,

I'm a newbie to networking. I'm trying to connect my home PC to a
remote PC using remote desktop with no luck.

Both PC are running Window XP Professional. The remote desktop setup
have been performed on both PCs. It has been tested that both PCs can
run remote desktop in LAN. The remote PC is connected with ADSL
modem, my home PC is connected with 56K modem. I first connect my home
PC to internet via dial-up, trying connect it to the remote PC but
failed. It shows that the remote PC can't be reached. I tried to PING
the remote PC but failed. Checking my dial-up connection, the default
Gateway is 0.0.0.0.

Is it because that the Gateway of my dial-up doesn't exist thus it
can't reach the remote PC, which causes remote desktop not working?
how can this be resolved?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

"Joe" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
> Hi all,
>
> I'm a newbie to networking. I'm trying to connect my home PC to a
> remote PC using remote desktop with no luck.
>
> Both PC are running Window XP Professional. The remote desktop setup
> have been performed on both PCs. It has been tested that both PCs can
> run remote desktop in LAN. The remote PC is connected with ADSL
> modem, my home PC is connected with 56K modem. I first connect my home
> PC to internet via dial-up, trying connect it to the remote PC but
> failed. It shows that the remote PC can't be reached. I tried to PING
> the remote PC but failed. Checking my dial-up connection, the default
> Gateway is 0.0.0.0.
>
> Is it because that the Gateway of my dial-up doesn't exist thus it
> can't reach the remote PC, which causes remote desktop not working?
> how can this be resolved?
>
> Your help is greatly appreciated.

Sounds like your home pc isn't connecting properly. Can you do normal
internet operations like browsing, email, etc?

If not - are both pc's using the same provider with the same username? Could
be your ISP may only allow one connection per user.


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Joe wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm a newbie to networking. I'm trying to connect my home PC to a
> remote PC using remote desktop with no luck.
>

First you need to be sure of the external ipaddresses of both pcs
and scan the IP from the other end a couple of free tools that are
handy for this are Robin Keir's IP2 http://keir.net/ip2.html and
the Angry IP scanner http://www.angryziber.com/ipscan/.

Assuming that the scan hasn't been blocked by Xps firewall you now have
the IPs. You might VNC or TightVNC easier to use than remote desktop --
just don't expect it to be useable, this type of connection is slow even
over an internal lan.

Domminic Hyde wrote:

> Assuming that the scan hasn't been blocked by Xps firewall you now have
> the IPs. You might VNC or TightVNC easier to use than remote desktop --
> just don't expect it to be useable, this type of connection is slow even
> over an internal lan.

VNC sucks! I can't believe how slow it is over a 100 megabit LAN, and
the server maxes out the CPU whenever you're connected, making things
even slower!! You're better off getting to the route of the problem
stopping you from connecting with Remote Desktop. If your gateway really
is 0.0.0.0 then you've got problems. If the connection works normally,
check that the machine you're trying to connect to is configured to
accept Remote Desktop sessions, somewhere in Control Panel -> System,
and like someone said, make sure you haven't got a firewall blocking it.
I can't remember the port that Remote Desktop uses for incoming
connections, but I'm sure you'll find it if you Google for it.

In article <418bb433$0$3995$(E-Mail Removed)>, "=?
ISO-8859-1?Q?Anton_G=FFsen?="
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> Domminic Hyde wrote:
>
> > Assuming that the scan hasn't been blocked by Xps firewall you now have
> > the IPs. You might VNC or TightVNC easier to use than remote desktop --
> > just don't expect it to be useable, this type of connection is slow even
> > over an internal lan.
>
> VNC sucks! I can't believe how slow it is over a 100 megabit LAN, and
> the server maxes out the CPU whenever you're connected, making things
> even slower!!

So tweak the settings.

Rob Morley wrote:
> In article <418bb433$0$3995$(E-Mail Removed)>, "=?
> ISO-8859-1?Q?Anton_G=FFsen?="
> (E-Mail Removed) says...
>
>>Domminic Hyde wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Assuming that the scan hasn't been blocked by Xps firewall you now have
>>>the IPs. You might VNC or TightVNC easier to use than remote desktop --
>>>just don't expect it to be useable, this type of connection is slow even
>>>over an internal lan.
>>
>>VNC sucks! I can't believe how slow it is over a 100 megabit LAN, and
>>the server maxes out the CPU whenever you're connected, making things
>>even slower!!
>
>
> So tweak the settings.

Want to suggest some settings, Rob?

Rob Morley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>In article <418bb433$0$3995$(E-Mail Removed)>, "=?
>ISO-8859-1?Q?Anton_G=FFsen?="
>(E-Mail Removed) says...
[snip]
>> VNC sucks! I can't believe how slow it is over a 100 megabit LAN, and
>> the server maxes out the CPU whenever you're connected, making things
>> even slower!!
>
>So tweak the settings.

And / or try a different VNC (there are plenty, each optimised for
different situations). More recent version are better integrated with
OSes (hooking into interrupts instead of polling, for example) and you
just can't beat it for cross-platform ability.

Get the right version for you, tweak and test till its satisfactory
then just get on with your work. Or pay loads of cash or suffer with
limited features for an app that happens to have defaults that suit
you.


Tim
--
Anyone who qualifies their comments with "just my
two cents" is usually over-valuing their contribution.

Tim Auton wrote:
> Rob Morley <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>In article <418bb433$0$3995$(E-Mail Removed)>, "=?
>>ISO-8859-1?Q?Anton_G=FFsen?="
>>(E-Mail Removed) says...
>
> [snip]
>
>>>VNC sucks! I can't believe how slow it is over a 100 megabit LAN, and
>>>the server maxes out the CPU whenever you're connected, making things
>>>even slower!!
>>
>>So tweak the settings.
>
>
> And / or try a different VNC (there are plenty, each optimised for
> different situations). More recent version are better integrated with
> OSes (hooking into interrupts instead of polling, for example) and you
> just can't beat it for cross-platform ability.
>
> Get the right version for you, tweak and test till its satisfactory
> then just get on with your work. Or pay loads of cash or suffer with
> limited features for an app that happens to have defaults that suit
> you.

I've been using TightVNC (the latest unstable test build) as both client
and server, and it's still slow. I've tried messing with the settings,
but it's still slow. I've been told by someone who uses WinVNC a lot
that it's slow as well.
If only there was a way of connecting to the current session on a
Windows Server 2003 machine with Remote Desktop, like you can with XP
Pro. But until then, it'll have to be bloody VNC.

What VNC client/server do you recommend, Tim?

In article <418c2deb$0$4037$(E-Mail Removed)>, "=?
ISO-8859-1?Q?Anton_G=FFsen?="
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> Rob Morley wrote:
> > In article <418bb433$0$3995$(E-Mail Removed)>, "=?
> > ISO-8859-1?Q?Anton_G=FFsen?="
> > (E-Mail Removed) says...
> >
> >>Domminic Hyde wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Assuming that the scan hasn't been blocked by Xps firewall you now have
> >>>the IPs. You might VNC or TightVNC easier to use than remote desktop --
> >>>just don't expect it to be useable, this type of connection is slow even
> >>>over an internal lan.
> >>
> >>VNC sucks! I can't believe how slow it is over a 100 megabit LAN, and
> >>the server maxes out the CPU whenever you're connected, making things
> >>even slower!!
> >
> >
> > So tweak the settings.
>
> Want to suggest some settings, Rob?
>
As it's eating CPU time turn down the compression. If you find that
you're then constrained by network bandwidth, reduce the colour depth
and/or desktop size. And don't use wallpaper :-)

Anton Gÿsen <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
[VNC]
>I've been using TightVNC (the latest unstable test build) as both client
>and server, and it's still slow. I've tried messing with the settings,
>but it's still slow. I've been told by someone who uses WinVNC a lot
>that it's slow as well.
>If only there was a way of connecting to the current session on a
>Windows Server 2003 machine with Remote Desktop, like you can with XP
>Pro. But until then, it'll have to be bloody VNC.
>
>What VNC client/server do you recommend, Tim?

Too many variables for a really good answer and I use it across
different platforms so my experience probably won't relate. Anyway,
TightVNC eats CPU as it's optimised for slow networks so compresses
the arse off everything; it trades CPU for bandwidth. You can do a few
things in TightVNC which may help: turn off JPEG compression, it just
slows stuff down on a fast network. Get it to poll only the foreground
window if that works OK for you. Kill animated windows, menus and any
background images on the server system. Increase the poll interval a
bit (lower intervals are good for the client but bad for the server),
I've never seen a difference with <80ms.

For a pure Windows > Windows LAN setup there is probably a better VNC
than TightVNC but I don't know which one. I mostly use TightVNC, but I
use it in a Windows, Linux, OSX (soon*), Palm, LAN, Wi-Fi (soon*),
broadband, IRDA, GSM setup. You can't beat TightVNC over slow
connections and I find tweaking client settings are enough to get it
useable over a fast network, but you don't have the network or
platform restrictions I have.

Of course all the VNCs have a lowest common denominator so they all
can all work together, but you're best finding the version tweaked for
your setup and running the same client and server to use all the bonus
features different versions give.

Overall though, the way VNC works (it sends graphics of the screen
over the network) isn't very efficient. Sending a new bitmap every
time you scroll a window is a pretty ugly way to do things, even if it
does mean one technique works for every app on every platform. I've
always got it to work fine for what I need to do, but I'd never dream
of using Photoshop in it. I sit in front of the machine for that (and
I make sure it's a decent machine too).


Tim

* Last I heard my iBook and Airport were on their way from Taiwan to
the Netherlands.
--
Anyone who qualifies their comments with "just my
two cents" is usually over-valuing their contribution.