Remote desktop with Windows Vista

[Hyudra]

With the roll around of Windows Vista (I'll be getting the version that doesn't include remote desktop) are there any free remote desktop applications that I can use to connect to my work computer?

 

[3NF]

You'll have the ability to remote desktop to other machines. What you want have is the ability to remote desktop to the machine running Vista, unless you get the Ultimate or Business Premium versions.

 

[Winchester]

UltraVNC FTW

 

[papaschtroumpf]

sorry, I used to be a fan of VNC and its variants, but remote desktop is one of the things that Windows XP Pro did right. Much faster, flexible and stable that anythign else I have tried, from VNC to PC anywhere. In particular the ability to have the desktop size adjust to the size of the viewing client (rather than having to use scrollbars to see what's on the server) is a must have for me. This one feature alone would justify buying Ultimate for me, the way it was the single biggest factor to get Pro.
Because of the price of Ultimate, it's one more reason to not upgrade to Vista anytime soon. (DirectX 10 games will be what pushes me to it)

 

[Hyudra]

I'm not sure what you mean. I will be able to remote desktop, just not to other Vista machines?

 

[neutralizer]

Originally posted by: Hyudra
I'm not sure what you mean. I will be able to remote desktop, just not to other Vista machines?

No, he means that with any Vista flavor, you can run the remote desktop client. It's only the Ultimate or Business Premium which can run the remote desktop server.

 

[dfuze]

I've used LogMeIn on vista and on xp. There is a free version and a paid version, but I think the free one is good
enough as I can remotely control my system. Especially considering it's free, I think it's pretty damn good. Not to mention, for a free product, they
actually have support that answers questions, quickly, correctly, and followed up with me a day or two later.

 

[3NF]

Originally posted by: neutralizer

Originally posted by: Hyudra
I'm not sure what you mean. I will be able to remote desktop, just not to other Vista machines?

No, he means that with any Vista flavor, you can run the remote desktop client. It's only the Ultimate or Business Premium which can run the remote desktop server.

Right - sorry I didn't make that clear. It's the same thing with XP Pro and XP Home. You can't remote desktop to a machine running XP Home, but all XP Home and Pro machines have the client to remote desktop to another machine running XP Pro.

 

[neutralizer]

Originally posted by: dph1077
I've used LogMeIn on vista and on xp. There is a free version and a paid version, but I think the free one is good
enough as I can remotely control my system. Especially considering it's free, I think it's pretty damn good. Not to mention, for a free product, they
actually have support that answers questions, quickly, correctly, and followed up with me a day or two later.

Except the nice thing about Remote Desktop is that any computer running Windows XP Home or Pro or a linux flavor that supports rdesktop can remote into a Remote Desktop Server running WinXP Pro.

 

[3NF]

In case you're interested, the remote desktop client was recently updated to support widescreen displays. The maximum resolution before was 1600 x 1200. This client is standard on all Vista machines, but you can get it for XP HERE

 

[Hyudra]

Fantastic. Thanks a lot guys. Lessens my worries about upgrading.

 

[neutralizer]

Originally posted by: 3NF
In case you're interested, the remote desktop client was recently updated to support widescreen displays. The maximum resolution before was 1600 x 1200. This client is standard on all Vista machines, but you can get it for XP HERE

Is this for using remote desktop on machine that is widescreen or remote desktoping into a machine that is widescreen?

 

[jameswhite1979]

TIGHT NVC is good been around for a long tine and is free for basic which should just what you require.

 

[papaschtroumpf]

Originally posted by: jameswhite1979
TIGHT NVC is good been around for a long tine and is free for basic which should just what you require.

again, not true. et me give you an example:

My home machine runs on a 1600x1200 LCD, so that's its defau;t desktop size.

My laptop only has a 1024x768 screen. If I remote into my home machine from my laptop, Windows desktop will resize the remote ("virtual") desktop to 1024x7678: no need to scroll to access the task bar or the menu, everything gets resized.
If I run VNC, I get a 1024x768 window into a 1600x1200 desktop, which involves constant scrolling to see the part of the desktop I want.

Some people may not like the resizing that occurs, but to me it is the most important feature of Remote Desktop.

Also, Remote Desktop uses windows remote procedures, or somethign like that, so when you open a window only the info about the size of the window, its location, etc... is sent to the client. This is very obvious if you run a linux client for example, at least older client will make your XP windows look like they are NT windows. The advantage of this method is that you have to send less information between the client nad the server, some remote desktop tends to be faster. It's also why you can have the remote have a different size than the original dekstop.
All flavors of VNC on the other hand send (compressed) pictures of your screen (well, only the parts that change) and has a higher bandwidth requirement, and uses more resources on the server.

I use VNC on my linux machine, and it's quite good for what it does, but it's not a replacement for windows remote desktop.

 

[3NF]

Originally posted by: neutralizer

Originally posted by: 3NF
In case you're interested, the remote desktop client was recently updated to support widescreen displays. The maximum resolution before was 1600 x 1200. This client is standard on all Vista machines, but you can get it for XP HERE

Is this for using remote desktop on machine that is widescreen or remote desktoping into a machine that is widescreen?

For remote desktoping on a machine that is widescreen. At home, I have a Dell 2405FPW running at 1920x1200. So now when I remote desktop into work, I have full screen resolution. Previously, it would only be at 1600x1200.

 

[gerwen]

UltraVNC allows window scaling, so you can view a larger remote desktop on a smaller local screen. It also allows windows authentication rather than VNC's if you desire, as well as DSM encryption on the session.

I've found it to be the most feature rich of the VNC flavours. Unfortunately, it's not working too well for me on Vista at the moment. It's working, but it's very sluggish. I haven't been able to get it to work properly as a service either, it will accept connections, but not allow control. Running the server program as an admin solves this for the moment.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Does the Vista RDP service allow for concurrent connections/sessions? I know that XP Pro and MCE2005 RDP services can be hacked to allow that.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: neutralizer

Originally posted by: dph1077
I've used LogMeIn on vista and on xp. There is a free version and a paid version, but I think the free one is good
enough as I can remotely control my system. Especially considering it's free, I think it's pretty damn good. Not to mention, for a free product, they
actually have support that answers questions, quickly, correctly, and followed up with me a day or two later.

Except the nice thing about Remote Desktop is that any computer running Windows XP Home or Pro or a linux flavor that supports rdesktop can remote into a Remote Desktop Server running WinXP Pro.

logmein has a web client so you can remote control your system from any system with a web browser.