Remote Desktop: Connecting to Home from Work

[jetvision1170]

In nutshell: Can't connect from office to home PC via remote desktop client or web connection. Upfront: searched threads for specifics and have tried many for months now.

Details: Running XP Pro on both PCs. Netgear touter is set to forward port 3389 to LAN IP. IIS is running and set for port 80. ZoneAlarm is set to allow access to MSTSC.EXE (terminal services). ICF is not enabled. Remote Desktop is set to allow access for my admin login. I have a DDNS that can be pinged as well. Router has been rebooted along the way to ensure changes are updated.

So, my question is: if I can ping my IP, why can't I connect to it? Something tells me I'm almost there and probably missing some small component. I'm looking for at least the RD login screen(s) but can't get that far. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Shadow97]

what happens when you type

http://your_external_ip:3389

?

 

[jetvision1170]

When I type my WAN IP get an Internet Explorer error message "the page cannot be displayed". Any more thoughts?

 

[jetvision1170]

I was able to connect using Remote Desktop client; not sure why this happened all of sudden - nothing - I mean nothing - was changed. Still can't access via RD Web connection however. Also, I have forwarded 3 other different ports to 3 different LAN IPs (thus the reason for wanting to connect using RD Web) and have not been able to attach to these.

Is it possible to connect to these other PCs on my router any other way?

 

[smah]

If you're trying to connect to other machines using different ports, those machines must be set to listen on the appropriate port. See

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306759

 

[Mickeyncube]

I've registered a domain name mydomain.co.uk
how do I go about adding computers to the active directory and how do I start using my domain name for things like exchange.
I need to be able to connect via the internet to any pc on my domain. I've set a couple to accept incoming vpn connections

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[jetvision1170]

I'm not familiar with adding computers to AD or exchange. I would post those questions in a new thread.

For connceting to these computers:
If you are running Windows XP Pro, VPN to your network. Them, use Remote Desktop to connect to your computers on the domain by entering. their LAN (not WAN) IP address or the computer name in the "Computer" text window. Select the Options button and enter your Domain in the field as well. You'll need administrator priviledges (or at least Remote Desktop priviledges) to be able to connect.

Hope that helps.

 

[Mickeyncube]

Thanks for the response jetvision

I have a few questions to ask. I'm still new to this so please bear with me.

Am I going to need a vpn client? Or can I do it straight from Win XP? Are there detailed steps on how to set this up from the host to the client connection

Once again Thank you

 

[jetvision1170]

We were all new to this at some point and still are so don't worry.

You would use a VPN client to allow the PC to "tunnel" into the network. Do a serach on this site using these keywords: vpn remote desktop