Helping my colleagues

[juliaatpcgp]

I look after a small single office (2 floors of building) network of about 30 Windows 98/XP users with varying levels of experience. The network hub is a Windows 2000 Server.

At the moment, I get calls from users, usually telling me very little about what the problem really is - eg. I cannot print. I usually try to find out if they get an error message or is nothing happening, have they looked at the printer to see if it's just run out of paper. But usually I end up going in person to their desk/printer to sort the problem out. Thankfully they're not far away, but it seems to take up a lot of my time.

I am looking for a way they can invite me to view their screen (EXACTLY as they're seeing it) and then take over control of it. BUT I want them to see what I am doing so that perhaps they can resolve the problem themselves next time (here's hoping!).

Now I know Windows XP has Remote Assistance but I've never got it to work successfuly and I don't think it is quite easy enough for my users to send a request - plus how do I support the Windows 98 users ?

I have used VNC to take over remote PCs but only when no one is using them - I'm not sure if it's suitable for my situation. I've heard of other software such as Logmein, but I would appreciate some direction in my search.

I would really appreciate your help.

Regards,
Jay

 

[dberg35]

VNC works very well and they can view everything you do. I use it in my corp enviorment with great success.

 

[John Lewis]

I would strongly concur that VNC is your best bet. It will allow you to see the remote machine while still allowing the user to have control of the keyboard/mouse. When doing so, it is best to select "disable inputs" on your viewer to keep your mouse from conflicting. Even when you are controlling the mouse and keyboard, VNC does not blank the screen or create a new login, so the user can see what is going on.

The real shortcoming of VNC in this situation is the lack of a good method of sending a help request. If you have a viewer running in listen mode, your users can connect their machine to your viewer, but there is no built in method of communicating the nature of the request.

Also keep in mind that there are several flavors of VNC.

RealVNC (

http://www.realvnc.com)

is the "original" VNC that the others are based upon.

I use TightVNC (

http://www.tightvnc.com),

a modified version. Offers some added features but maintains compatibility with other operating systems (Mac, Linux, Unix).

If all of your computers are Windows based, you should check UltraVNC (

http://www.ultraVNC.com)

which does not support other OSs, but does offer some really nice features for Windows that are not available in other versions.

Also, VNCScan may be rather useful in your environment (

http://www.vncscan.com).

A centralized control panel to work with many VNC hosts across a LAN. It is not free, but I think the $49 USD version might be of use to you. There is a 30 day trial version available.

Another commercial option is PCAnywhere, but I have never seen a good reason to pay for it over using free VNC software.

 

[juliaatpcgp]

Hi,

Thank you very much for your replies.

I have RealVNC installed on many of my PCs. I had been recommended to use TightVNC instead so I have switched a few PCs over to that - are the 2 compatible ? I ask because I had a user on one connecting to a PC on the other type and the connection speed was incredibly slow so I was wondering ....

I have downloaded and installed Ultra VNC on my home PC and my one at work and I can see all the toolbars but the rest of the screen is black !

I suspect this is something to do with display resolution because my home PC is 800 x 600 on a 14" CRT screen and my work one is 1024 x 768 on a 15" flat screen - but this disparity doesn't cause Remote Desktop any problem, so why would it Ultra VNC ?

Can you help me ?

I will check out the trial of VNC Scan and am especially impressed that the licence fee is so reasonably priced and per Admin console which means we'd only need 1 for me ! At that price, I think I could easily pursuade my boss to purchase it if I want it.

Regards,
Jay