Windows 7 Remote Desktop Question

[geoffw]

Has anyone had any experience of using the Remote Desktop feature on Windows 7? According to the Windows 7 FAQs you have to have W7 Professional to use this feature. (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... -questions)

What I would like to know is this. If the computer you want to view the Remote Desktop on is using W7 Professional can the remote machine have an earlier operating system such as XP, Vista pr even W7 Home? ... or do both machine have to be using W7 Professional or Ultimate.

[RCE]

In the past it has been backward compatible (eg rd to XP from 2K) so no reason to suspect it wouldn't work from XP to a desktop on Win7.

Worst comes to worst Ultravnc is free remote desktop software.

[nking]

In addition to UltraVNC you should also take a look at Logmein https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/ and Team Viewer http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx both of which may well do what you want far easier than trying to use remote desktop.

[steve]

I use Remote Desktop both for work and home and it works fine between all combinations of Windows. I go from my own PC running Windows 7 to my work laptop running XP, and then remote from there over VPN to all kinds of other machines running XP, Vista, Windows 7 and various flavours of Windows server.

[TNETWeather]

I stopped using Remote Desktop years ago because I could not use it on a workstation that had GRlevel3. it would blank the app's screen due to issues with the way the video is used.

I switched then to RealVNC and got the "purchased" version because it offers encryption that the free version doesn't. I now use it on all my local desktops and have it setup via the residential firewall so that I can access any machine at the house remotely with it using different port numbers.

Works great.

I use it exclusively has the means of accessing my weather workstation which has no monitor or keyboard on it.

For work, we use a specialized SSL app that allows us to connect via MSIE browser (doesn't work with FF) and then connect via a secure link over what is the same as remote desktop. However, the same issues that I had with GRlevel3 effect using Xwindows on some Unix servers over that connection so I sometimes have to revert to a VPN connection instead using RealVNC to do the few items I need done there that way. Normally, I just wait until I get into work to do those tasks.

To support "family" I normally use something like Crossloop which is free instead.