Making the Remote Desktop Connection
Hi Fred: Enjoy your plus column very much, to the point where I've bought and given out gift subscriptions. It's the one column that I read religiously as soon as it comes in. Thank you.
I wonder if you could go into some detail about Remote Desktop Accessing between Windows XP Pro machines where there are routers and home networks involved? The example that I have is my own situation, where my machine has an internal IP address of 192.168.1.101 and is trying to access (through the Remote Desktop) another machine belonging to my daughter behind her router, and with an internal IP address of 192.168.1.100 on her machine. Of course, I know what the external IP addresses are.
I've tried to connect using the external IP address on her system, but I keep getting an "Unable to connect" error message. All the information that I've been able to find seems to assume that the connection is from machine to machine without routers and networks involved. What do I need to do to connect, in order to repair some of her system? ---Basil Barnes
There are three main blocks of IP addresses that are intended only for private, local networking: 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255, 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255, and 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255. Routers (and similar tools) are designed NOT to pass these local, private addresses out to the external internet; so communication in a LAN stays within the LAN. To allow contact with the outside world, the router (or similar tool) translates the local "non-routable" IP address into one that is routable. This is called NAT, or "network address translation," and it provides a layer of insulation between your PC and the external world.
That's almost always a good thing--- except when you're trying to connect two distant machines so that they can work as if they were on a LAN. Then, the layer of insulation becomes an obstacle to making easy connections.
Fortunately, there's a technology that lets PCs function over the internet in virtually the same manner they would if they were on a private, local network. It's called "virtual private networking" (VPN).
Medium and large companies use VPN solutions to enable secure connections over the Internet for
remote or mobile users. But increasingly, small businesses and even home users
are using VPN solutions to establish secure peer-to-peer connections across
routers and firewalls, and a few companies are stepping up to provide these
solutions.
One such offering is LogMeIn's Hamachi VPN, a free software/service combination
that enables you to establish a peer-to-peer connection between two PCs over the
Internet. Such a connection lets you access shared folders, print remotely and,
yes, use Remote Desktop. (The Hamachi site even has a dedicated Remote Desktop
over Hamachi VPN discussion forum (
http://forums.hamachi.cc/viewtopic.php?t=4078 ).
The software is available in two full Windows versions (a "shipping" older
version and a "beta" newer version), and console versions for Linux and Mac OS
X. You can connect one version to any other version. Download Hamachi here:
http://www.hamachi.cc/download/
Installation is straightforward. Some users report that a Windows XP error
message during installation says that the Hamachi virtual network adaptor isn't
supported. Clicking the "Continue Anyway" button gets you past that message.
Installing the newer beta for Windows on Windows XP Pro SP2, I didn't get that
message.
After the very simple setup, you're prompted to name your network, and are given
a unique IP address. Other users establish a VPN peer-to-peer connection with
your system by installing the Hamachi software and joining your network. Once
connected, the peer-to-peer connection functions as if the PCs were both
connected to the same LAN.
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