Remote desktop over a local network (and not over the internet)

Ricochet J · 23 May 2014 at 14:25

Thanks guys. I'll let you know how I get on

Quartz · 23 May 2014 at 15:06

BattFink said:
To access it from the internet, you can either forward the port 3389 on your router to the ip address of the machine. A VPN would probably be the safer solution though

More secure would be to open another port on the router and forward that to 3389 on the local PC. You can specify the port when using MSTSC using the IP Address

ort Number format e.g. 192.168.3.3:33332

asim18 · 23 May 2014 at 17:29

bledd. said:
What version of Windows will it have?

If it's it's a Pro or above version, then it will have remote desktop built in.

Free and simple.

Once you enable Remote Desktop on the new machine (let's call it the host), on any other laptop/pc on the same network, you just open a run box (Winkey + R) type in mstsc hit enter.

Now type in the computername of the host, enter the Windows username/password for that machine and you'll be connected.

This. Couldn't be simpler.

No idea why people would suggest teamviewer or even mention forwarding ports lol

Quartz · 23 May 2014 at 17:53

asim18 said:
No idea why people would suggest teamviewer or even mention forwarding ports lol

Because they're talking about over the internet, not on the LAN.

Nymins · 23 May 2014 at 18:24

Quartz said:
Because they're talking about over the internet, not on the LAN.

But the OP specifically asked about accessing devices in a LAN and not over the internet.

Quartz · 24 May 2014 at 02:22

Nymins said:
But the OP specifically asked about accessing devices in a LAN and not over the internet.

I was responding to Batfink who said 'Over the internet...'

Phemo · 24 May 2014 at 23:02

Quartz said:
More secure would be to open another port on the router and forward that to 3389 on the local PC. You can specify the port when using MSTSC using the IP Addressort Number format e.g. 192.168.3.3:33332

That's a better option than just leaving the standard 3389 open on the Internet, but it's still not more secure than using a VPN.

Anyway as others have said there is nothing complicated about this. You just enable Remote Desktop in System properties, make sure it's enabled in Windows Firewall if it's on (usually just enabling Remote Desktop makes a firewall exception anyway) then from the Mac Remote Desktop just enter your other machine's internal network IP address. There is nothing more to it.

unleashed · 25 May 2014 at 01:45

just RDP...it's so easy