Remote Desktop - Free?

fRostiE · 27 Feb 2008 at 11:27

Hi all,

Are there any comprehensive remote desktop solutions available for free? or for a minimal fee (one off £25 or less) ?

my girlfriends company are shutting down their office and all operatives are to work from home but dial up a server box which will be hosted in the boss mans house..

what options do they have? im guessing the number of sessions the application can handle may be an issue...

Please just let me know if any come to mind, i'll be doing research in my lunch hour just thought i'd ask you clever people too

Thanks,

fRostiE

uv · 27 Feb 2008 at 11:31

there's a million free VNC apps - search sourceforge for VNC..

I've previously used tightVNC, VNC, Ultra-VNC..

They're all free, just see which one suits your needs the best

bledd · 27 Feb 2008 at 11:36

best option is all users to have hamachi installed

will be a virtual network between them all then, it's free but you're limited to 16 users per network if using the free version, the premium ($40 a year for single user) gives you 250 odd users per network

no configuration required, really is dream software

remote desktop is where you remotely control a machine by the way..

fRostiE · 27 Feb 2008 at 12:38

bledd. said:
best option is all users to have hamachi installed

will be a virtual network between them all then, it's free but you're limited to 16 users per network if using the free version, the premium ($40 a year for single user) gives you 250 odd users per network

no configuration required, really is dream software

remote desktop is where you remotely control a machine by the way..

great, thanks I'll look into that one:

Yes they want to be able to control this particular machine and use their courier tracker software to track their vans and other bits i believe.

Thanks

Sone · 27 Feb 2008 at 13:00

buy an old copy of NT4 TSE,

I can't see it being worth much second hand

GhostlyPea · 27 Feb 2008 at 13:24

I can vouch for Hamachi if it will suit your needs, its a fantastic item of software. However i have found that some applications (mainly games) will not work under some situations while it is enabled.

- Pea0n

neil_g · 27 Feb 2008 at 13:31

thats going to be a nightmare with VNC, even if you enable concurrent connections you will only be able to have 1 active user at a time..

swinnie · 27 Feb 2008 at 13:39

Would a free VPN Solution suite the needs better, I have recently been told of Untangle (http://www.untangle.com/).

If you used VNC you would be remotly controlling one session and if it was over the internet there may be quite a bit of latency.

Andy100 · 27 Feb 2008 at 19:17

I'd say the boss is definitely going to have to fork out for a vpn appliance and a few TS cals.

Doing it any other way is going to be pretty dangerous for the business security wise I'd expect.

Caged · 27 Feb 2008 at 19:26

This is a giant screw up waiting to happen. Your boss is very unlikely to have anywhere near the amount of bandwidth to handle 20+ RDP sessions from his home, and to think the software can be had for £25 is hilarious.

Maybe that's why they had to shut the office down?

tolien · 27 Feb 2008 at 19:30

In addition to what Caged said, what happens if his internet connection goes out? Is he ordering a leased line to his house?

fRostiE · 27 Feb 2008 at 19:35

Caged said:
This is a giant screw up waiting to happen. Your boss is very unlikely to have anywhere near the amount of bandwidth to handle 20+ RDP sessions from his home, and to think the software can be had for £25 is hilarious.

Maybe that's why they had to shut the office down?

several issues with this, tho i don't know about the bandwidth issues and that

its not my boss, its my girlfriends, and there will be a max of 3 users on the machine at any one time. So its not going to be quite as bad as you make it out, tho i admit there are probably still going to be issues!

tolien said:
In addition to what Caged said, what happens if his internet connection goes out? Is he ordering a leased line to his house?

then they're screwed, i don't believe hes doing anything to his internet lines, ie just a personal use one of around 4-10mb i would guess.

Andy100 said:
I'd say the boss is definitely going to have to fork out for a vpn appliance and a few TS cals.

Doing it any other way is going to be pretty dangerous for the business security wise I'd expect.

I'll pass the information on, thanks - non of them are technically minded and i doubt they've considered the risks or implications

L33 · 27 Feb 2008 at 19:36

Sounds like a bit of a shady setup to be honest!

fRostiE · 27 Feb 2008 at 19:40

L33 said:
Sounds like a bit of a shady setup to be honest!

its a simple money saving operation (to them)... saving their office rent and working from home.

Like I've said I've no idea about these remote desktop solutions

though i can see problem with them wanting to have more than 1 user on at the same time, as well as authentication and secure data transactions, if that makes sense!