Fastest remote desktop and remote switch on...

[Chav]

Any recommendations for simple but very fast remote desktop via lan.

Want large screen resolutions updating as fast as possible.

Also, how do i make computers turn on remotely via lan or any other means after power failure etc? new to that bit, but want to sort some things out myself... so can do anything remotely including turning the machines on if power dead?

[burble]

Remote desktop does a pretty good job but it's hopeless for anything graphically intensive.

As for powering on machines, you could use WOL (Wake on LAN) where you send what's called a magic packet to the MAC address of the network card of the machine you want to power on. You'll need to make sure that WOL is enabled in the BIOS of the machine you want to power on. You will also need a program to send the magic packet from your machine.

If look in the BIOS you might see an option regarding power on after power cut. If that option exists you can set it so that if the machine was powered on before the power went out, it'll power on the machine again when the power comes back.

[Chris_B]

Any graphics will be quite slow on Windows via remote. If you think Remote Desktop is slow, try VNC - unless you install the VNC driver on the server it will be painful.

Having said that, you could try the latest builds of VNC server, and make sure you install the hook driver, and tell the client to use a video method suitable for LAN (there's an easy speed selector on connect) - if it's no good just remove it again!

Try the AMD Magic Packet generator for wake-on-LAN packet creation.

You'll find either via Google.

[Chav]

Cheers Chris/burble.

Do you know if wake on lan works after a BSOD??? .....how do i restart the feckers if that happens? Looking for wakeup solutions via web and remote desktop via web and lan.

[burble]

Nope, WOL won't work after a BSOD because the machine will still be powered on. You can set Windows to automatically reboot after a BSOD though so that might be of use.

[rottenbend]

Cheers Chris/burble.

Do you know if wake on lan works after a BSOD??? .....how do i restart the feckers if that happens? Looking for wakeup solutions via web and remote desktop via web and lan.

You can buy a box which will recycle the power via tcp/ip. I've seen one where you just access the power supply via an ip address which brings up a web page to which you log on and clcik a button to reboot the unresponsive pc.

[Chav]

cheers i'll have a surf for one. does aps/plextor ups software do things like that does anyone know?

just tried vnc - its dire compared to remote desktop xp(display quality etc). had a play with remote desktop and managed to get it running widescreen/nice color etc.

updates are pretty smooth but was wondering if there was something even better. typing this via remote and it seems just like on host machine when via 1gb lan. which is nice.

[Hopsta]

APC do a rack unit that will allow you to power cycle etc, don't know if they do a deskto version.

I've used Dameware in the past for remote controlling, but like most not great on heavy graphics and will only work if the PC is up.

[Chris_B]

just tried vnc - its dire compared to remote desktop xp(display quality etc).

Remote Desktop and things like PC Anywhere (if that still exists even?) use video drivers that hook GDI calls and redirect them to be redrawn on the remote viewer, so they can look quite nice. The latest RD client also includes nice things like sharing the client printer, drives, ports etc.

VNC works at it's most basic by grabbing data out of the frame buffer (AFAIK) and it's pretty transparent across X and Windows from a client point of view.

Did you try Ultra VNC? I probably should have mentioned that particular one earlier! That's the one with the mirror driver.

I still suspect that full-screen, full-colour will be best served with Remote Desktop though - I've run 1920 x 1200 32-bit sessions over an ADSL VPN and they've been OK, so over a Gb LAN...