Remote Desktop Weirdness

[Westbrook]

We have a lot of children, so consequently we have a lot of computers.

We have five desktops and two laptops all running XP.

All the computers are connected by Wireless Network using WAP to the internet via DSL.

My desktop and laptop run XP Professional, and all the others run XP home.

I can login by Remote Desktop to my XP Pro system from any ofthe XP Home systems,

but I cannot login by Remote Desktop from my XP Pro system to any of the XP Home systems.

Neither can I login by Remote Desktop from any of the XP Home systems to any of the other

XP Home systems.

My XP Pro is running Zone Alarm for a firewall, and all the other XP Home systems are running

the Microsoft Firewall they came with.

I have enabled Remote Desktop in the Firewall Settings of all the systems.

Here is the error message I get when I try to login by Remote Desktop to any of the XP Home systems.

The client could not connect to the remote compuer.

Remote connections might not be enabled or the computer might be too busy to accept new connections.

It is also possible tht network problems are preventing your connection.

Please try connecting again later. If teh problem continues to occur, contact your administrator.

What am I missing?

.

[awilliamson]

XP Home does not have the support for Remote Desktop. It does have Remote Assistance, but that is not quite the same. To remote the Home systems, you may want to try using VNC (A free remote PC product). You could also setup NetMeeting on the Home systems to run, allowing you to remote the systems.

[Westbrook]

Aha ....

OK, VNC it is then!

Thank you for the help and the tip!

[ringfinger]

I believe you can also install RDP from the XP cd on the XP Home systems. I've had to do this on some 2000 servers and once installs it works fine.

"To install from the CD, insert the disc into the target machine's CD-ROM drive, select Perform Additional Tasks, and then click Install Remote Desktop Connection."

[jcarle]

I believe you can also install RDP from the XP cd on the XP Home systems. I've had to do this on some 2000 servers and once installs it works fine.

"To install from the CD, insert the disc into the target machine's CD-ROM drive, select Perform Additional Tasks, and then click Install Remote Desktop Connection."

That will install only the client.

To allow connections to the XP Home machines, you'd have to modify the terminal services DLL. It would involve something similar to the "hack" that replaces the XP Pro terminal services DLL with the one from Server 2003 to allow simultaneous console and remote desktop sessions.

[cluberti]

Jcarle is correct - you cannot connect via RDP to an XP Home machine "unsolicited" (i.e. without someone on the Home machine asking you via remote assistance).

VNC is a good free alternative.

[ringfinger]

Well then... I stand corrected...