Technology of the Month

Using Remote Desktop

Have you ever been frustrated because that one critical file or email that you desperately need is on your office computer and you are either at home or at a conference? Remote Desktop is a tool that can help you in situations like these. It allows you to access your computer from another computer anywhere on the internet. In order to take advantage of Remote Desktop, you need to configure both the computer that is being accessed as well as the computer that will take control. Of course, if you keep all your work on a laptop or on a network file server, you may never need this technique.

In this write-up, we will explain how to control a campus computer from an off-campus location. With Remote Desktop, you don’t have to worry about whether the programs or data you need are on your off-campus computer since they are all on or accessible from your campus computer. Likewise, you don’t have to worry about whether your home computer is fast enough or has enough memory to run your programs. Everything is running on your campus computer and only the screen images and keystrokes are being transferred across the Internet.

Another question that you may have is, what if you are at work and you want to access to your home computer? This is complicated and unless you are an advanced user who understands networking, we strongly discourage you from trying to do this. If you do not set up the network access properly, your home network may be open for access by computer hackers.

In order to establish a Remote Desktop connection to your campus computer, there are a few requirements:

• The campus computer must be turned on and connected to the network

• The computers must be running either Windows XP Professional or Mac OSX

• The off-campus computer must use VPN to establish a secure connection into the campus network. For instructions on using VPN please click on the following link: http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/vpn

The specific configurations for the campus and off-campus computer differ according to whether they are Macs or PCs. Please select the appropriate link below for configuration instructions. We recommend that faculty and staff work with their Desktop Support Specialist to configure their computers for Remote Desktop sessions.

Remote Control between two Windows XP computers

Remote Control between two Mac OSX computers

Remote Control a Windows XP computer from a Mac OS X computer

Remote Control a Mac OS X computer from a Windows XP computer