Suggest remote access application other than team viewer

raksrules

raksrules

Level N
I am using team viewer as a primary remote access software and have it installed on almost all my laptops and also have the app on my iPhone and nexus7.
But there is this issue I face sometimes when I am away from my laptop in Pune and something happens like the app crashes or other random things which means I no longer have access to that computer. As of writing this post I am in such a situation, my laptop in Pune shows me online on team viewer since yesterday but I cannot connect it. I also know what has happened. Here it seems that the team viewer app has probably crashed or something but the service is probably running and hence it shows on my devices as ready to connect.
To mitigate such a situation, I want to install an additional software on my Pune laptop which works almost same as team viewer. I want this to act as a fall back option if team viewer crashes like this or say this new app crashes but team viewer is still working.
I intend to login to my remote laptop and restart the other crashed app so in an ideal situation I should be able to access the remote machine using both of these apps.
Any help in this regard will be appreciated.
 
When you guys say Remote Desktop, do you mean the default Remote Desktop which comes in windows machines ?
If yes then will it work fine when the destination laptop is on windows xp while the one doing the remote is on windows 7 ?
Also won't Remote Desktop require IP address to be known ? If I am away from that destination machine, I have no way to know the IP address and if the internet connection disconnects and reconnects, the IP address will change right ?

Tomorrow when I go to Pune home, I plan to setup at least 3 such applications as fallback options in the vent one if them crashes on that machine.
 
raksrules said:
When you guys say Remote Desktop, do you mean the default Remote Desktop which comes in windows machines ?
If yes then will it work fine when the destination laptop is on windows xp while the one doing the remote is on windows 7 ?
Also won't Remote Desktop require IP address to be known ? If I am away from that destination machine, I have no way to know the IP address and if the internet connection disconnects and reconnects, the IP address will change right ?

Tomorrow when I go to Pune home, I plan to setup at least 3 such applications as fallback options in the vent one if them crashes on that machine.
Click to expand...

Default Windows RDP requires you to do port forwarding on the router and also know the IP address. Thats why I said DDNS - in case of IP change, it informs the DDNS provider the same (keeps updating every few minutes). Also, some versions of Windows do not have RDP host support - do check that part out.
 
Need some help with ammy admin. I install it in my machine and setup the service and all. But i don't know how to actually access this machine from another machine. I read about setting up unattended access but could not figure out how i will actually connect to this machine from some other machine.
 
vivek.krishnan said:
All you need is the ID which remains the same. Enable access from your ID always.
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That was dumb of me. I thought the client id would change everytime. Thanks for that. I will write that client id down now. Also due that service thing, i don't need the application to be open which is also good.
 
raksrules said:
That was dumb of me. I thought the client id would change everytime. Thanks for that. I will write that client id down now. Also due that service thing, i don't need the application to be open which is also good.
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I would suggest to use RDP - its better, is inbuilt and works fine. Just get a good password to protect your computer.
 
vivek.krishnan said:
I would suggest to use RDP - its better, is inbuilt and works fine. Just get a good password to protect your computer.
Click to expand...

Ok can you explain me a bit or point me to a link or something which explains how to use RDP, especially in my case where i may not know the remote IP address. I am sure there would be some pre setups steps to do so that IP is no longer needed and some other method like host name or something can be used to RDP into the computer.

Btw in the windows XP machine i installed ammy admin and it is running fine. On my another home laptop which has windows 7 i installed /ran ammy admin and i was able to remote from win7 to winxp laptop but now i am running the application on my work computer and i am getting the 12007 error saying, cannot connect to proxy server.
I don't know what is wrong, may be work firewall blocking the access or something.
I tried the only solution i could fine but it did not work.

Edit: The ammy admin was because of work firewall not allowing the connection. But for reason my machine shows not available. I gotta check at home itself now why it shows unavailable.
 
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You can use VNC. But any work place will block the VNC, Ammy admin and Team Viewer ports.. They are just security nightmares. What you need to do is install VNC and keep it as it is. While forwarding the port on your router, you need to forward the RDC port to VNC port. e.g. RDC port is 3389 and VNC port is 5900. So on router you need to do 3389 > 5900 mapping. This the VNC service will find no difference at all.

On your machine from office you need to type the public IP+ 3389. E.g. 123.123.123.123:3389 and you'll get connected to VNC after entering the password.

The plus point on this is.. even if anyone port scans your machine they will expect RDC to be running on 3389 whereas VNC will be running which will be totally different.
Oh and yes.. VNC has a free viewer for Android and iOS. So you can view your machine from your mobiles / iPad too :)

Need any more info.. lemme know.
 
raksrules said:
Ok can you explain me a bit or point me to a link or something which explains how to use RDP, especially in my case where i may not know the remote IP address. I am sure there would be some pre setups steps to do so that IP is no longer needed and some other method like host name or something can be used to RDP into the computer.

Btw in the windows XP machine i installed ammy admin and it is running fine. On my another home laptop which has windows 7 i installed /ran ammy admin and i was able to remote from win7 to winxp laptop but now i am running the application on my work computer and i am getting the 12007 error saying, cannot connect to proxy server.
I don't know what is wrong, may be work firewall blocking the access or something.
I tried the only solution i could fine but it did not work.

Edit: The ammy admin was because of work firewall not allowing the connection. But for reason my machine shows not available. I gotta check at home itself now why it shows unavailable.
Click to expand...

You need to use DDNS. Signup for NO IP's DDNS service. Select a subdomain. Either setup DDNS in your router OR There is a client for Windows from NO IP : http://www.noip.com/download?page=win

Enable Remote Access from Computer Properties in the laptop.

Ensure that your router is port forwarding 3389 to your laptop's LAN ip 3389.

Once you are done with the above, check if you can ping your noip URL. Once done, open remote desktop properties, and enter the url without http ie raks.no-ip.biz and connect.

Ammmy Admin is usually blocked. So are the others. Try speaking to the IT chap whether he can help.
 
Thanks for that. Ammy admin is blocked, team viewer works (no need to install either). But for some reason it gave me client id not found so not sure what the problem is. Will check back at home.
I also read more about the chrome remote desktop so i will install that too when i am home.
 
Thanks everyone for the suggestions here. So finally I have the following installed and running at given time on my laptop

Team Viewer
Chrome Remote Desktop
Ammy Admin
Jump Desktop

Out of this Ammy admin is sort of disappointing since whenever i try, it says cannot find the Client Id XX XXX XXXX when it is available and even open. I tried from one laptop to another and it keeps saying this error. The ammy admin service is also running so no idea what the problem is.

Team Viewer is the most used.

Chrome Remote Desktop - I thought you needed chrome to be open all the time on destination machine and such but nothing like that. I like this too. Pretty easy to use using chrome browser. Also installed app on my nexus. Hope iOS app comes soon.

Jump Desktop - This uses VNC and installed TightVNC and all that. I have no knowledge about VNC so ease of use was important. Using another computer, for some reason it would not accept my gmail id/pass and keep telling me error in connecting. I tried at home (not office) and still issues. Had almost given up on the app. But then downloaded the android app and it connected fine (after couple of attempts). iOS app is like 13$, no way buying that. Ahem version is crashing.
 
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