Remote Desktop?

[aaronman5000]

I'm trying to connect to a friends pc using Remote Desktop but I'm not exactly sure how. I've put their ip adress in the computer box and pressed connect but I keep getting this message pretty much telling me that "The client could not connect to the remote computer." Can somebody please tell me how to use this program, I know that I'm either not doing something right or I'm missing something. Is there anything that has to be done to my friends computer to get it to work? Any help is appreciated.

[leeg]

Still good, you got to the remote access page.

Try putting in his computer name as the server, and leave username and domain blank. Usually a login screen comes up anyways for you to login. Let me know what your normal process is and I'll let you know what settings are wrong.

Make sure for testing the remote desktop to log in a user with an easy password. log your friends computer out to the login screen. Only 1 user can be logged on remotely at a time. Thats the difference between Remote desktop and other programs like gotomypc or that other one... pc anywhere.

[aaronman5000]

so like for user name i'm supposed to put in the user name on that computer? and for password i put the password for that user name on that computer?

[leeg]

Type the public ip address or the computer name inside the server edit box. Also if your friend is on a router let me know.

At first, on the main remote desktop page just leave username and password blank/ eventually another user name dialog pops up, you will type the user name of your friends computer/ not your username, and the password for the user name you are using

[aaronman5000]

The only boxes I see are the "computer:", "user name", "password", and "domain:" boxes. Would the server edit box be the "computer:" box? If so I've tried putting both the computer name and the ip adress in that box and both ways I've gotten the error message. About the whole router thing I'm not exactly sure what that is. The two computers aren't really connected in any other way than the internet...that's how I hope to connect with her computer. I think we are both using Verizon online dsl. I hope any of that helps.

[degsy]

What OS's?

I thought XP used Windows Messenger or Outlook Express to make the contact?

[aaronman5000]

yeah they're both Windows XP home edition

[leeg]

home edition?

I don't think you can connect to a remote desktop server unless it's running xp pro. But you can access remote desktop from xp home edition

actually I'm pretty sure of this

[aaronman5000]

so what does that mean? i can't hook up to her computer? is there anything else that will let me do that?

[leeg]

you can either upgrade your friends computer to xp pro for $100 - $200. Or you can check out some of the other remote access applications that are listed in the link below:http://www.download.com/Remote-Access/3150-7240_4-0.html?tag=stbc.gp

and get something fairly cheap, around $20 bucks