I have a desktop PC running XP pro SP3 and a laptop running XP home SP3. Both have modems installed (as well as the normal network cards etc). When I am away from home I would like to be able to dial from my laptop to the desktop, connect to the desktop and run programs remotely. (like Windows remote desktop and LogMeIn.com, both of which I have and work well via the network and internet). However I need to be able to access via ordinary dial up voice telephone lines as I am often in locations where there are no hotspots, or ADSL. I don't want to have to go via a dial up ISP as it seems to me that if I can dial my own desktop directly I will get a much better speed and no contention compared to a dial up ISP. I have read several post on this, mostly quite old, but get the impression that others may have done this succesfully. I have raised this with Microsoft as a support issue but they tell me the requirement is beyond the support capability of their people. I can';t believe that two computers cannot 'talk' to each other via modems. In the old days we used to do this all the time using DOS! Can any one help me please?? Best wishes ... jnewell745

Might look at PCAnywhere. You can do it all yourself too if needed. PCA is about as fast as it will get. The reason you don't see any windows gui is because too much overheard. It did work almost well enough with text and dos but now you won't be able to use much more than 8 bit color and quite a lag. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10

One other thing to consider is thy you will only get a speed of 33.3 Kbs with MODEM to MODEM. You wont get 56 Kbs without going through an ISP. Even then it will only be asynchronous, that is 56 Kbs one way and 33.3 kbs the other. You need to make sure that the MODEM at home is left on auto answer and software that can respond to the incoming call. Stuart

jefro and Stuarts, Thanks for your replies. I've looked at PCAnywhere and it seems to need an internet or network connexion, rather than dial up. I don't think the dial up connection speed would be an issue as even via an ISP on a 33Kbs link the download speed is less than 5K due to contention. My modem is set up to answer i/c calls after two rings and does so. I have an i/c connexion set up in Network Connections with the modem specified as the source. The modem will wake up the machine from standby. You can hear the modems attempting to handshake but then it fails with error 678. There is a MS KB289628 - XP Pro does not support i/c connexions by using MDS CHAP for PPP authentication. I can't work out if this is relevant. I do appreciate the help people give, so thankyou both. If anyone can provide me with more feedback I'd be really appreciative. Thanks. Best Wishes ... John Newell

PCAnywhere is what you want. Read on it again. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10

Hi Jefro, Thanks for your reply, Sorry to be a pain. I've googled pcanywhere and visited the symantec/norton site but I can get no clear information on what pcanywhere does. ie cast iron confirm that I can link two PC's by dial up and run files on one from the other. Plenty of people who want to sell it to me though.! Can you suggest a link that would give detailed info? Thanks... John Newell

Try this.............. I'm sure you'll have mobile phone, thus would work as long as your mobile catches network signal......... Mobile>>> laptop by usb or bluetooth (acess the internet via mobile) if that works then check this out http://www.teamviewer.com/download/... best software I've found for that end..