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Is there a way to use VNC to connect to my Mom's computer?

F

Felecha

Golden Member
I would like to be able to remotely connect to my Mom's computer. She often calls me for "tech support". It can get maddening, as she tries to describe what is on her screen. She is 84 years old, and NOT a techie ....

I'm not expert, but I have used VNC and PCAnywhere and Remote Desktop, so I have a basic understanding of what I want. The issue is that she is in a retirement condo place, so there is a LAN there and up to now I have been under the impression that, short of working things out with whoever manages the network there, I could not put a VNC server on her computer and a client on mine and connect and run hers from here.

But recently I had a problem with Norton Antivirus and in the chat session I had with their tech support the guy told me that to resolve my issue, they would have a "specialist" open a remote connection to my computer here and they would do it all for me. I told the guy that I have a home network, a Linksys BEFSR41, and I didn't think they could set it up, but he said yes, they could. I declined to pay for their proposed solution, but it got me thinking - is there a trick I don't know about?

So - anyone know how I could do it?

Thanks
 
OK, so I would install the regular VNC here and get her to download and install the singleclick there? I went to the link and it's frustrating - it tells all about SC but I cant find the download for SC
 
The UltraVNC site is very frustrating. I see their tutorial on the SC exe, and other stuff I found out on Google has variations of the same - customize, and then go to the link they call UltraVNC SC Creator tool . All such links just wind up at the UltraVNC home page UltraVNC

????!!!!
 
Well, I finally found it, and got the exe to compile. Then there was a long time with an error that popped up when I tried to use it - "No VNC server selected". I kept double clicking on what looked like a really big button (the original helpdesk.txt puts a line on the screen saying to "Dubble Click to make a connection" right below the big text area, so I mistakenly thought it might be a button). Took some google searching for that, found someone on a forum with the error. Turns out that the text area presents lines of text, configurable in the helpdesk.txt file.

[HOST]
Double Click on this text to connect to FelechaTech
-connect ***.***.***.***:5500 -noregistry

The "Double Click on this .... " shows to the user and the -connect info is apparently called from the compiled exe.

So you can have any number of those [HOST] sections, and whichever one you select for double-click gets called

Nothing in the tutorials to make that clear. Anyway, when I got that solved, sure enough the damn thing works. I am able to do it from within my home network, laptop to desktop, using the 192.168.1.***, and then I changed it to my real IP from whatismyip.com, and that too works (I did the port forwarding thing, I'm pretty sure it's correct).

So now all I have to do is send it to Mom and we'll see!

UltraVNC SC really is a cool thing, but golly-wolly, they could make it a lot clearer. I work as a QA engineer for a large software company, writing test code for a GUI app, and one of the big big things for us is usability, making sure it not only works, but makes sense to the user. This one would not get an A from us. Part of it is me, I could have been smarter, I guess, but that's not the whole story.

Hey, thanks for the help and the patience.
 
Originally posted by: FelechaUltraVNC SC really is a cool thing, but golly-wolly, they could make it a lot clearer. I work as a QA engineer for a large software company, writing test code for a GUI app, and one of the big big things for us is usability, making sure it not only works, but makes sense to the user. This one would not get an A from us. Part of it is me, I could have been smarter, I guess, but that's not the whole story.

Hey, thanks for the help and the patience.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but it is Free.:thumbsup:

And as the saying goes: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth".😉

I am sure that few Millions the Symantec people would share their method with you.

I just wonder is any one ever thought how the thousands of people who give free software, free advice, etc. make their living of.😕
 
JackMDS - true enough, I should maybe suggest it in a helpful manner, rather than grump, eh?

And -- magic ! It worked. I sent it to Mom and the connection works!

 
Originally posted by: FelechaAnd -- magic ! It worked. I sent it to Mom and the connection works!
Click to expand...
Terrific. :thumbsup:

I did this a while ago I remember in general that the Internet interface is quirky, but I did not remember what in specific.
 
The magic is that is was so simple. Mom is not easy to talk through things with. I use what seems to me like simple talk -

"Now drag that little window out of the way."
"What do you mean, drag the window?"
"Click the title bar with your mouse and hold the mouse down and move it across your screen"
"Title bar???"
"OK, at the top of any window there is a rectangular strip with 3 little boxes at the end, one of them is the X that you use to close windows with."
"You want me to close the window?"
"No, I'm showing you what I mean by title bar. That area at the top with the title of the window in it is called the title bar. Click on that, and hold the mouse down, don't let up on it, now you can 'drag' it to where you want."
"Left click or right click?"
"Left click, Mom."
etc etc

That is one I have gone through more than once. It can get comical, if I remember to look at it that way.

So to have the SingleClick thing so simple is great!
 
One downside is if your ISP uses dynamic ip's is that you may need to occasionally recompile the exe so that your helpdesk.txt file contains the right ip address.
 
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