I'm sending out Windows 7 Home edition laptops to a few on the road guys.

Ideally i would like to remote into their machines if they are having problems.

Is VNC still the best choice? or use windows 7 built in option?

12/1/2010 1:09:08 PM

I'm a big fan of vnc.

12/1/2010 1:10:44 PM

Doesn't get better than this:

https://secure.logmein.com/

12/1/2010 1:22:52 PM

+1 for logmein.

12/1/2010 1:37:42 PM

^^ nice never heard of that.

You using the free version or pro version?

12/1/2010 1:40:12 PM

Logmein Central + Pro is nice but the free version does its job. It's a little easier to manage with Logmein Central and allows direct file transfers from your PC to the client PC and a few other things but not worth the money imo. If you just need access to another computer for troubleshooting or showing someone how to do something, the free version should work. I'm fond of the ability to boot into safe mode and re-enable logmein without any user interaction which is handy for spyware/virus removal and it also supports wake on lan.

[Edited on December 1, 2010 at 2:04 PM. Reason : ]

12/1/2010 2:03:53 PM

I've been trying out live mesh. It's not bad. It's biggest advantage is sharing files effortlessly and being able to connect over port 80 so you don't have to screw with firewalls to get in (like if they're in a starbucks or something.)

Log Me In has always been a good choice as well; just didn't have file sharing that I liked. Pair it with Dropbox and you should be good to go there as well.

12/1/2010 2:05:06 PM

Free version has always been more then enough for me. you can do most of the pro stuff with the free with a little work.

12/1/2010 2:05:34 PM

yeah 1+ vote for logmein. Can do almost anything in the free version. Throw in Dropbox and you've got the ability to push installs/files to each computer via shared folders. Plus the iPhone/Android apps are the best mobile remote desktop apps I've ever used for maintenance on the go.

12/1/2010 3:09:22 PM

logmein

12/1/2010 3:40:29 PM

Quote :

"Plus the iPhone/Android apps are the best mobile remote desktop apps I've ever used for maintenance on the go."

meh, I tried the beta of Ignition on Android and it was crap for the price. I've been using PhoneMyPC and like it a lot more and it's only $10. Granted it may require a little more effort to set up and and can't be accessed from another PC like logmein though.

12/1/2010 4:05:55 PM

Logmein, because it's free and incorporates it's own VPN tunneling.

12/1/2010 4:06:27 PM

VNC was good. But I love logmein. Even the free version is great.

so...

+1 for logmein

12/1/2010 5:15:08 PM

http://www.mesh.com

or

Windows Live Essentials 2011 (will eventually replace Live Mesh). Works seamlessly for remote desktop, file synchronization and cloud storage/backup. And it's all free.

12/1/2010 7:17:38 PM

Live Mesh is part of Live Essentials 2011.

12/1/2010 7:41:50 PM

http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=572339

maybe 10 threads down

vnc sucks, rdp v7 owns, logmein is a decent backup

12/1/2010 8:03:15 PM

I won't agree with Live Mesh 2011 until they allow me to leave the remote computer unlocked when I disconnect. Otherwise, it's a great solution, and I use it to keep my files synchronized between machines.

12/1/2010 9:39:32 PM

RDP does indeed 0wn, but it's not available if you're remoting into anything below a Professional edition (the host needs to have Terminal Services)

VNC is a great cross-platform solution, in case you ever need to remotely control a Mac or some other non-Windows machine, or even an old Windows box from before RDP existed

12/1/2010 9:55:37 PM

Windows Live Essentials is not exactly Live Mesh. It's currently a bit of a hybrid, although to the user they are functionally equivalent.

Also, one of the reasons I like Mesh is that you don't need RDP, so it works on Home versions of Windows just as well.

12/2/2010 12:43:15 AM