I’ve been remoting into work for 2 years. We use VMWare. Works great.
I am not a network guy. I’m a programmer. I know my way around a computer, but not network stuff.
This is a question about being able to connect to my Moms desktop over the internet that is 100 miles away.
It took me an hour today to walk my mother through how to get to her H&R Block account so that she could print out her 1040 that we did together on her computer when I was at her house (we had already printed it out, she wanted another copy)
It was brutal. She’s 92, and is legally blind. She’s … OK with computers and uses hers mostly for emails and getting news.
I see that Win 10 Pro can do this (Mom has Win10 home, I can update this).
The trick is they are both desktops, I live 100 miles away and there is no way I can walk my Mom through the IP settings or whatever to allow access from my machine and only my machine.
I have an XPS 13 Dell that I could take to my Moms house, and try to sort this connection stuff out, but have no need to connect to her desktop from that. I would like to do it from my desktop at home (100 miles away). I’m so busy when I see my mom, that I don’t have a lot of time to do this.
I already drive 600 miles a month taking care of stuff for her.
The ? is - Should I pursue Win10 Pro remote connection, or try something else?
At work when I have difficulty talking someone through how to do something, I have them do a screen share (we used to have Skype, now we have Teams) and then give me control. I’m not sure but maybe even Zoom would work? I know you can screen share in Zoom but don’t know if you can give someone else control.
Win 10 (Including Home edition) has ‘Quick Assist’ as standard, much the same as TeamViewer but simpler to use (IMO - I use both but use QA to support users of a small commercial app)
I’ll repeat my experience with TeamViewer and why I now use Remote Utilities instead. Like many here, including the OP, I provide IT support for my aging parents, and I happily used TeamViewer for many years.
Then, one day, out of the blue, TeamViewer notified me that it had determined that I was using the program for commercial purposes (I wasn’t) and that I’d have to pay to continue to use it. In accordance with their instructions, I contacted the company to get their explanation, and to try to appeal, but they didn’t respond in any fashion. I tried removing the program and reinstalling under a new account, but they didn’t allow it.
My research found many other cases of TV cutting people off without any explanation or recourse. Needless to say, I was peeved and the experience turned me off the program and the company.
So I found Remote Utilities, which is free and has all the capabilities of TV, and in some ways is simpler and easier to use. And so far (at least three years) they haven’t cut me off or demanded payment without cause.
If you start using TV, it will almost certainly work fine for you as long as the company doesn’t capriciously decide you aren’t using it only for private purposes. But if they do, you’ll be forced to find another solution. So I recommend using Remote Utilities from the start.
I’d suggest this. I’ve used it to do things remotely, it works well, and it’s built into every recent version of Windows (no need for your mother to install anything).
How it works:
You start QA as a helper. It gives you a session code.
over the phone, you have your mother start QA, and enter that code.
Your mother clicks on “full control”, thus letting you remotely take over her computer. Then you do what needs to be done.
Very simple for her – only 2 things she has to do: enter the session code you tell her, and give you Full Control.
Yeah, I tested Quick Assist yesterday from my desktop to my laptop. Easy as pie. Going to try to hook into my mom’s machine later today.
She has a REALLY slow internet connection though that she absolutely refuses to upgrade even if I pay for it. Might be an issue, donno. I have to talk to her about that again because I need her to have a faster connection. The fact is, when she passes, I will need to live in her house for a while to take care of her estate. And I will be working remotely from there. It’s something that I do not want to have to deal with during a difficult time
My experience is that the connection through RDP (the protocol Microsoft uses) is pretty good, so I hope it won’t be a problem. You’re more likely to run into things being laggy than to not be able to use it.
If it does become a problem, the fastest I’ve used is Splashtop mentioned above. It was one of the first to encode the video from the screen, and keeps lag down.
I would be interested in people who have used many such options discuss how fast each one is, and which one is best for slower connections.
Well, quick assist worked fine going to my mom’s computer.
BigT - I haven’t tested her speed in a while, but it is slow. Things worked well enough that I could do what I needed. And mostly, I just wanted this set up for the future.
We’ve used TeamViewer to help our parents (1000 miles away). FIL has a Chromebook and the remote desktop for that is iffy for us; MIL got a new computer a month or so back and we have not gotten that one set up for Teamviewer.
I seem to recall that you CAN set that up with a code so that you don’
t
Seconding this. I’m pretty sure you can set it up (on the host machine) so that you can remote in without the owner needing to do something every time; we’re visiting the in-laws in a few weeks and will check it out then (MIL got a new computer, and Team Viewer is not yet set up on that one).
Yeah, but my Mom absolutely insists on totally shutting down her computer when she is not on it. Power strip, everything. Might happen a few times a day. If the computer goes to sleep and if there is any LED light on anywhere, well, it must be completely turned off. It’s one of a couple of battles.
Drives me a bit nuts.
Another battle is getting her to upgrade her internet connection. No, she might not really need it, but I do when I’m visiting, or when she passes on and I will need to live at her house while working remotely and taking care of her estate.
I’ll pay for the upgrade, no problem, but she refuses to do it. Need to have another discussion about this, but hard to open with - “Ya know, when you die in a year or two…”
I wonder if you might tell her it’s Bad For The Computer to be shut down. Not strictly true, as far as I know - but I remember often being told by the networking folks at work to leave the computer turned on, as its power usage is minimal, and this lets them push out patches etc.
Could you order the upgrade yourself and just not tell her? I suppose she might notice the higher bill, but maybe the router might just happen to “break” sometime when you’re there and you’re happy to take care of replacing it for her…
A big contention seems to be that the power strip has an LED on it that shines unless it’s turned off. I know the thing uses close to zero energy. But she must turn off the power strip (in her mind).
I’m fighting another battle to just get her to wear her emergency button in case she falls again (she has broken both hips). But the answer is always “It’s right there on my walker, I don’t need to wear it” Umm… no. It needs to be on your person. I remind her every time I see her. But she tells me to stop “scolding her”
As far as upgrading her internet, I know that the company would need to get into her house. I live 100 miles away. I can’t be sneaky about it. And this is something that I need to dedicate time to. When I see her, I have lots of other stuff on my ‘honey do’ list.
Hah - yeah, it’s tough when they don’t want to be reminded of such aspects of aging There’s an aspect of lessened judgment in some cases, or willful cluelessness (both are true of my in-laws).
That seems like it might be something you could deal with, as you can get power strips without such a light. And, with a computer, you can open it up and disconnect the front LED so that the computer can sleep without it blinking or anything. (Also, you can likely turn off any light on the motherboard through the BIOS.)
Personally, my computer never sleeps. I don’t even have my monitor go into sleep mode, as I always found it annoying to have to wake up, and it hasn’t been necessary for a long time. (It might be a good idea for an OLED screen, but I’ve never owned one of those.)
Thanks but… Mom will know. The computer is not somewhere where any light could disturb sleep. It MUST be OFF. And disabling the light for the on button would cause an opposite problem “It’s not on”
Best to let sleeping moms lie (lay?) in this case.
@BigT- I’m pretty much the same as my work computer is never turned off. Nor is my home computer that I use to remote into my work computer.
It’s kind of funny, since I moved out of my office at ‘work’ my workstation also got moved. I went to the old office a month or two ago and there is note on my workstation saying to not turn off or move with out contacting me.
Of course boots and updates happen. At home and work.
<additional stuff deleted because I’m rambling on>
There’s an aspect of lessened judgment in some cases, or willful cluelessness (both are true of my in-laws).