The hell. … I’m trying to conect to my Mom’s PC to help her out and cannot figure out her IP address.
VNC. usually a pretty good way to conect. I have her on the phone but we cannot figure out her IP.
Have her visit http://checkip.dyndns.org/
If there is a router between her PC and the cable / DSL /whatever modem, you may need to configure it to pass the VNC traffic to her PC.
(There are many such services on the web, but this one’s domain name fits the thread title well 
)
If router port forwarding proves too complex you might try installing the free version of hamachi to set up a virtual network. its childs play to setup and will give you an easily accessed IP even if she is dynamic on her end for later incidents, or the free versions of logmein and such.
If the above suggestions don’t work, try CoPilot:
If your mother hovers the mouse pointer over the VNC icon in the system tray, it will tell her the PC’s IP address.
As previously mentioned, you may need to configure port forwarding on her router if she has one. You may also need to configure her local firewall.
Got her IP and I can ping it. But no luck with VNC. Connection refused. Before asking for a password… Suspect firewall issues. What do you folks think?
(I’m just trying to help out my 80yo Mom that is not sure if she has one or two hard drives, a drive into town is on the horizon, but I really would like to know what to expect.)
Yeh, first thing I asked her do. It does not read right or it’s blows off the right side of the screen… Something is weird there.
spelling. ummm… well I missed that day… and yes firewall
You might have to setup NAT port forwarding on your gramma’s machine. That might be difficult to do if you don’t have physical access to the machine:
CoPilot might just be an easier solution for you.
I get the same thing when I try to connect to my own machine (from my own machine).
I do have a router. My mother does not. She is Norton I’m McAfee.
When I visit those sites to check my IP, I get a number that is xx.xx.xxx.xx. But when I ping my own machine I get a completely different number xxx.xxx.x.xxx
Do you and Mom have Windows? You can use Remote Assistance instead of VNC…
Holy crap people. Teamviewer.
Thanks I’ll give it a try. And Windows remote. Both require more downloads of course. And I’m trying to talk My 80yo Mom through this. She is quite tech savy, so it should work.
All she needs on her end is the quick support program, it doesn’t require installation. On the download page just click on “For the instant customer: TeamViewer QuickSupport” and run.