Remote Control Windows 7 from Fedora?

[Palooka]

My daughter is away at university. She has an internet connected Windows 7
PC at home, behind a domestic router. I would like to control her screen
and mouse occasionally (over the Internet) from my Fedora 13/14 box, so as to
help her out with the inevitable Windows issues.

There is no data of a particularly sensitive nature on her PC, and it
would not be a problem if it involved a telephone call in advance on each
occasion, to arrange for her to start the server or whatever.

It's not particularly important whether or not she could view the local
screen while I am controlling the PC.

What is important is performance of screen updates - her connection
(although broadband) can be a bit slow at times.

Can anyone recommend a straightforward and reliable method to do this? I
am quite happy digging through documentation.

I have Googled, and there seem to be many alternative approaches.

Is VNC the way to go (and if so, which one)? Or something else?

Thanks,
Palooka

[John5342]

rdesktop is an application that speaks Windows's own native desktop sharing protocol so it only has to be enabled rather than installing stuff. I found it fairly responsive even over dialup when i last used it to log into Windows XP. Unfortunately i am stuck on a Windows machine today but google should tell you how to get started.

[Doug G]

I use tightvnc on windows, and generally have the remote user make the connection, I set my viewer in listen mode and have them attach their vnc server to a listening viewer. That way I only have my own firewall to mess with.

[Sicinthemind]

Originally Posted by Palooka

My daughter is away at university. She has an internet connected Windows 7
PC at home, behind a domestic router. I would like to control her screen
and mouse occasionally (over the Internet) from my Fedora 13/14 box, so as to
help her out with the inevitable Windows issues.

There is no data of a particularly sensitive nature on her PC, and it
would not be a problem if it involved a telephone call in advance on each
occasion, to arrange for her to start the server or whatever.

It's not particularly important whether or not she could view the local
screen while I am controlling the PC.

What is important is performance of screen updates - her connection
(although broadband) can be a bit slow at times.

Can anyone recommend a straightforward and reliable method to do this? I
am quite happy digging through documentation.

I have Googled, and there seem to be many alternative approaches.

Is VNC the way to go (and if so, which one)? Or something else?

Thanks,
Palooka

rdesktop... great... everyone should open RDP on their networks to the world. But terminal sessions in Windows 7 cause crashes for some reason. Whenever I RDP to my Windows 7 box... I can't login at the local system... it hangs infinite until I hard cycle the box.

VNC is old... slow... and not even worth it. I've lost respect for VNC's poor unencrypted latency... Even on a LAN it's connection is garbage...

LogMeIn is faster + uses 256AES TLS/SSL communication. Like SSH... good encryption with good compression, fairly good responses. Ok... think of VNC at normal rates... LogMeIn works faster than VNC without disabling wallpaper and user interface goodies, and disabling the display accelerator. Beat that...

Http://www.logmein.com - Install LogMeIn on her computer with a free account and free-license(reduced features)
Since you probably haven't even tried it, use logmein trial of LogMeIn Central which allows you to pre-configure an installation on the web interface. Then send her the link that it provides after you've created your automatic installation wizard. All she needs to do is put her name in the box... run a test installation for yourself so you know what to tell her. This currently only INSTALLS on Mac and Windows but you can manage from Linux using Fire Fox browser. See my SS.
LogMeIn Central allows for IT Departments to work together from Multiple Email logins instead of a single login...

My central trial expired... it's kind of sad now that I can't just deploy with the automated install but I still have free... ANYWHERE access to my systems when I need them. Uses port 443... so it's allowed from ANY network. I can goto a library and manage the servers at work.. It's sweet.

Now you need the Admin password for the system(Central SAVES THEM FOR YOU, single-sign on style, I now have to re-enter them each session)
Two Options

Option 1
Send her a ONE line command to copy and paste into command prompt so you can log in with logmein. She will need to elevate command prompt and runas administrator, by right clicking cmd and run as administrator.
net user yourname P@ssw0rd /add /active:yes & net localgroup administrators yourname /add
Option 2
If not, just ask her for her password if she trusts you enough, then you don't even have to worry about that junk.

Then use yourname with the password. IT will let her know when you connect.

[steelaworkn]

You could set up Windows in a Virtual Machine and then you would most likely have no problems.

[Doug G]

I don't think posting a screenshot in a spam post for logmein is very useful. Just sayin..

VNC works very well on properly configured computers and networks.

[Sicinthemind]

Originally Posted by Doug G

I don't think posting a screenshot in a spam post for logmein is very useful. Just sayin..

VNC works very well on properly configured computers and networks.

Well not many people have heard of LogMeIn and know nothing about it... yet everyone asks how they can access their systems at home using ports that are allowed via firewalls. That's my response, so yes, throw your stone and call it spam but if it helps 300-1000 people who are google searching for tools for remoting linux to Windows... I'm fine with that.

VNC doesn't work very well, it's very slow. I have better I/O responses across 10mbps internet connections than I do from a single 24-port gigabit switch with 3 ports being used with 2x 1m Cat5e cables... Plus it's encrypted traffic, and I don't have to pay for it. Some of the features are cool but for home systems, I don't need to spend $65/year per machine.

Thank you for your criticism, but if it works, I'll share it. I just posted the screen shot to prove it works.

[TheIceMan]

for occasionally connection use TEAMVIEWER which need no configuration and it's portable
it's has a linux client and it's for over routers and NAT as well.

[Doug G]

Logmein is also an excellent remote control package. Last time I checked though there was only a beta command-line client for linux, maybe there is a full release version now, I may try it out again.

I really don't like in-line images in forum posts, as you can tell they bug me