I have been using the tool TeamViewer for remote support a few times. And for creating an easy connection to a customers desktop, then I really haven’t tried anything as simple. Or to connect to your mothers PC to help her make her mail work! It’s as simple as she understand it also.
But now my 30 day trial period has expired and I’m looking to see if there are other systems which are cheaper to buy, but who does the same job. As my use is really 90% private (most of my customers have either Citrix or Remote Desktop Connection to their server) then the almost 400 EUR is quite a lot.
I know it’s also possible to use the build-in functions of windows, but this requires setup and so, which automatically excludes most of my family members when they have a problem.
When mom & dad need help in Fla. I set them up with UltraVNC. All they have to do install the “server” part and give it a password. Once done they send me their IP address. You can connect two ways 1- the client you can download or using java with http://theiripaddress:5800/
You are sure that you get through fire walls and routers which do not forward the port 5800 to the PC? What about supporting several PCs behind one router ?
Teamviewer is free for private use [:D] So there should nothing “expire”.
On the other hand, the life time license for only 400 Euro is a bargain for professional use.
I have been trying several different tools (like DeskShare, VNC, NetSupport and others) and Teamviewer was the most reliable and fastest tool.
I was going with the thought that he was just looking for some quick & easy way to connect to another pc.
We use it at work by having 1 computer that connects to the internet->once logged into that PC you can use UltraVNC from that one to connect to any other in the network.
Each has to has UltraVNC server installed & boots on startup as a service.
or we can use RDC once connected to the Internet gateway, blah blah.
So from Home I can connect to ourt work Gateway computer->which then I can get to my office pc->and from my office pc I can get->to a warehouse pc. Like a daisy chain. Works fine for our needs.
We have being using Teamviewer for three years and have upgraded to Version 5 recently. This allow you to store the IDs centerally and build up a database of connections. With the full version you can also apply your own logo to the client PC install and it can be branded as your own remote support tool. Also there is a handy server install that you can install on the client server (with their agreement) and connect at any time.
If TeamViewer expired for you, you happened to download trial full version then. The “free for personal use” is another download. As said here already, it has less features, but nevertheless it’s enough, it includes FileTrasfer, too.
I don’t know the technical side, how it is achieved, but TV really goes through all possible firewalls, seemingly it uses numerous methods and tries while some works. The only other such program I know is Skype - our admins --and they are really smart guys-- gave up after a month trying to block these two. What they found out, was that for every session the method is randomly chosen, both TV & Skype do not stick to once found working method. The only drawback - TV is not a peer-to-peer connection, you work through their servers.
And yes, besides other cases, I use TV regularily, when mom calls me with text I can’t find my Solitaire again… [:)]
In addition - TV does not neccesarily have client and server, it’s the same one.
@Thomas - we installed TV on 3 workstations behind FWs, Cisco high-end routers etc etc in TWO offices, and then daisychained them in a following manner:
PC1-Office1 > PC1-O2 > PC2-O1 > PC2-O2… kinda zig-zag thru all these FWs and it WORKED even in this awkward configuration! bear in mind, the zig-zag was even more complicated, because every connection actually went thru TV servers, not peer-to-peer.