How can I reliably access windows from work?

JonJ678

JonJ678

JonJ678

Soldato
Joined
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England
I've spent today looking at ultrabooks and decided remote desktop probably makes more sense. I use a netbook / cheap laptop / work computer to connect to my desktop over the internet, and work as if I was sat at home.

I know latency won't be great, but I'm more worried about unwittingly providing strangers with access to my home computer. Is there a reasonably secure way to achieve this? Perhaps something similar to vnc over ssh from the unix world.

My best guess at the moment is to set up a vpn between wherever I am and home, and then connect over that using an inherently insecure service. Any better solutions out there?
 
Logmein or something similar would work. You'ld need good upload to get decent performance though. It is secure but if there is a keylogger or logging software at your works then it might be for naught.

VPN is usually blocked at most workplaces unless they have a bad IT admin, poor security or have a need for it.
 
What router do you have?
What version of Windows do you have?


If you have a good router and Windows Professional/Ultimate: create a VPN on the router and use remote desktop.

If you have a home version, then use Teamviewer or Logmein

Or indeed, Hamachi & VNC (or remote desktop if you have pro)



Hamachi in a nutshell..

Creates a software based virtual network

You install it on each machine you have and you create a network, lets say "bleddnet" for example. And you set a password for it.

Now on the other machines you join "bleddnet", type in the password and you'll be able to do anything you would as if they were in the same network at home.

So you can share files, printers, remote desktop etc..
 
Logmein appears to work through a browser - that's not good for performance or security. Thanks for the suggestion though. Teamviewer looks promising though, I'll read more about that one.

Hamachi looks like a zero-effort VPN. I think I used it to play red alert many years ago. Am I right in guessing that I'll see better performance from a direct point-to-point VPN?

VPN at home and remote desktop sounds like the closest match to using vnc. My router won't do that, but one of the computers sat behind it certainly would. Windows 7 professional - so no problems there.

Thanks for confirming that a VPN is probably what I want, whether through Hamachi or not. Work certainly has ssh access so that's probably ok. Thanks guys
 
I'm on virgin fibre, which is not a miracle of reliability. Their router has a modem only bridge mode so I can sit whatever I like behind it. I'll either get a sufficiently clever router to run the vpn or set up a *nix box to do much the same thing - I'll go and find a few reviews to see what the off the shelf kit can do these days.
 
I have an Oracle Secure Global Desktop set up at home: flawless access to any of the home servers/ desktops from anywhere. SSL VPN too which means no issues on the majority of corporate domains.

May be overkill for a single desktop though.
 
The last two major banks I've worked fo have used a rebranded Logmein and it works ok. It's not quite as responsive as being at work but from hom eit's probably 90% of the performance. Security is handled by a challenge/response key token which is either a physical device or software on a smartphone. Obviously you may not have that software for security but as far as latency goes it's "acceptable".
 
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