Can someone explain the basics of accessing my work PC from the comfort of my home living room? I am burning CDs like they’re going out of style in order to take stuff home with me to work on.
I use a bog-standard PC running windows XP at work, and a windows 2000 PC at home. As for the network, I know naahhthing, obviously 
I can easily find stuff out if it helps people to chip in with advice.
Cheers!
Is your work PC behind a firewall? If so, you’ll need to have your network admin set up some kind of VPN or other method for you to get through the firewall. Otherwise, you should be able to use products such as PCAnywhere, etc. to access your computer from home.
We have a VPN connection set up where I work. The administrator of the domain has to set it up and give you a password. On your home computer, you set up a new network connection that is a VPN, and enter the IP address etc. (given to you by your network admin). Then, to connect to work, you simply double click on the VPN icon on your desktop. This connects your home computer to your work’s network.
Now if you want to actually be able to access your work computer, you can use remote desktop which comes on your XP CD. I forget exactly how to enable it from XP (and my XP box is presently as dead as a doornail) but there’s some fairly simple procedure you use to turn it on in the control panel. Once that is enabled you install the remote desktop client from the XP CD onto your home computer. Then you can log into your XP box from your home computer and you’re all set.
You can also use VNC as an alternative to the remote desktop.
Like FBG said it really depends on what kind of network is set up at your workplace. We have dedicated dial up servers as well as vpn. You need to talk to your IT department and find out what your options are for connecting to the LAN from home. As far as connecting to your PC at work you should be able to use a host of programs (again, depending on how your network is set up). We use a program here called RAdmin. If your company has no firewall or other security reasons for you connecting to your work PC then PC Anywhere is a good program to try.
You’ll need both computers to have modems and phone lines attached to them.
If you need more training or knowledge in how to perform these tasks and you have no IT support at work then this site has some excellent suggestions: http://www.geocities.com/boxing4d/Q209354.htm
You’ll probably have to sort out some firewall issues like the previous poster mentioned (talk to your IT department – they probably have procedures documented somewhere for the work-at-home crowd.)
But since you’re running Win2K and the office is WinXP, the easiest thing to do is use Microsoft’s own remote PC software. It’s free and works great – you basically open up a window that shows your desktop at work.
Here’s MS’s page on the subject and go here to download the software. With Win XP the remote access can be opened inside an Explorer window, but since you’re running 2K you’ll have to download the software. I use it all the time to work from home. It’s pretty dang spiffy.
Again you’ll have to have the techies at your own company walk you through making the connection from home, but once you’re on the company’s network you can use Remote Desktop to use your office computer like you were sitting in front of it.
EZ
Cool, sounds straightforward. Thanks all for the advice.