Hi, I am trying to connect remotely from outside my network at home to my home computer using remote desktop or real vnc.I have Windows XP Home installed with SP2. I have disabled the firewall. Port 3389 is assigned to Remote Desktop and my router is set to forward all requests on this port to my pc at home. I am unable to ping my computer at home from outside or connect remotely. I am not sure what else I could do. Please help. Caius

I use a program called logmein, It works really wel and dosnt need to be configured to get through firewalls. You just install a bit of software and away you go... I amd a computer tech and use it all the time for getting files on my home computer. You can get the free version. Or you can buy one with more options... You can get it from www.logmein.com

WinXP Home does not have the host portion of Remote Desktop. It only can use teh Client side of the software. WinXP Pro is required to be able to host a remote session. RealVNC or TightVNC should work just fine I am sure (from pwta's advise) lomein works fine too. You must install the software on each of the PCs to be used. To connect to the home PC the server or host software must be installed on that PC and the client software on the remote PCs. HTH Bryan

I happen to use Ultra VNC, which uses port 5800 or 5900 by default. The VNC programs must have access to your home PC's public IP address, and your public IP address will usually change periodically. There is a program called No-IP which locks onto your public IP and keeps your VNC program updated as the IP changes. You can check out No-IP at http://www.no-ip.com/.

The great part about logmein, is that you install some script software from the logmein website. That means you dont need to carry any software with you. I can get on any computer, anywhere and log onto my computer at home. And there is no setting up of ports on both computers. Worth a try.

Thanks for all the replies. I haven't tried logmein but I tried Real VNC and it doesn't work. Again, 1) my SP2 firewall is turned off. Btw, Symantec Antivirus installed which I am assuming does not have any firewall. 2) In RealVNC->connections, accept connections on port:5900 is set 3) Port forwarding on the router is set to my pc at home. When I try to connect to my pc from work using RealVNC I get the following error: Unable to connect to host: connection refused Also, I am unable to even ping my pc at home from outside. Caius