5punk

Well, as the most computer-literate of my family, I'm the one who gets all the calls whenever anything goes wrong. Being 300 miles away means that I can't pop over and fix it, and talking my mother through fixing things on the phone can be painful at best. I found this program called Crossloop which claims to let you have remote control over their desktop, mouse and keyboard. This would be really useful, but I wanted to ask here first if anyone has any experience of it, or if it isn't very secure and should be avoided like the plague. My Ma only has Windows 98 I think, but this claims to support it.

I hear LogMeIn is quite good

https://secure.logmein.com/home.asp?lang=en

same people who make Hamatchi

thewombleofdeath wrote: same people who make Hamatchi

Not really, they bought the rights to JammyKnees

LogMeIn is usefull for it's ability to be used in browsers, but it's a bit shite at times.

I've used VNC for years, but since XP, the built-in Remote Desktop is good enough for most things.

What's VNC? Never used XP's remote desktop, and since my family are on a variety of Windows (maybe just XP and 98) I was thinking a third party thing would be needed. It needs to be very simple to set up too, for the benefit of those at the other end. Fettling in the deeper bits of windoes would be far more hassle to them than installing this and entering the number I tell them to. I'm just looking for the simplest and most hassle-free solution.

I hate the word solution.

logmein is handy, but can be slow as fuck.

I generally swear by remote desktop - it's an option for all windows machines (dunno about pre win2k, but they don't count)

otherwise, I like ultravnc for easy setup, but it's not nearly as fast or reliable as RD.

Well maybe I'll have to have a look when I get home then and see what the options on Mum's computer are. It's fecking ancient though, and I'm doing all I can to persuade her to upgrade. By ancient, I mean the CPU is rated in the hundreds, and I'm fairly sure a digital watch has more processing power. She is paranoid about it failing because it has loads of important stuff on it, but only backs it up when I actually go and do it for her, so roughly quarterly. I'm amazed the HD hasn't crumbled to dust yet.

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:logmein is handy, but can be slow as fuck.

Balls! Logmein uses a very efficient protocal actually, it tends to be equal in speed to RDP, and bonus points for being web based. Expensive though.

VNC variants etc are slower, but free!

Remote desktop - does what it says on the tin, pretty handy. If you have previously set it up for the heathens.

Crossloop - looks interesting, like a free amalgamation of VNC & logmein type stuff.
Looks good, i dunno how they can operate for long as a free service - their server connection system must either be very clever & efficient or expensive to run.

ProfHawking wrote: Balls! Logmein uses a very efficient protocal actually, it tends to be equal in speed to RDP, and bonus points for being web based. Expensive though.

The protocol and such may well be great, but the few times I've had to use it, it hasn't been as fast as i'd hope (though, i never paid for it, so i can't be sure)

I use free logmein for my occasional remote desktoping requirements.

I tried VNC, but found it far too slow for it to be of any use, it might have been because I was tunnelling it through SSH. One major advantage of logmein is that you don't need to open a port through your router, but you do have to trust the Logmein people and their website.

ProfHawking wrote: Balls! Logmein *blah blah blah* Expensive though.

use the free one

Cheese & Ham has a cool little utility on his website that uses VNC but without the user having to do anything, takes a little bit of setting up on your end though..

I have used it on Fista, XP, and 98 so I can vouch that it works.

Linky here... http://www.runpcrun.com/taxonomy/term/151

Thanks Jock, you beat me to it
link: http://www.runpcrun.com/create_your_own ... t_software

Basically once built (once) it can be distributed to parents/granny/sister.
Once installed on their side they just double-click.

P.S. Fista is a little tricksy still and I've been working on a new build - for best results switch off aero and UAC and the new UltraVNC beta
http://www.runpcrun.com/files/uacoff.reg
http://www.runpcrun.com/files/aerooff.reg