Remote Desktop

Hope someone can help

New system at work, and we want one PC to take over another PC. I know got to open port 3389 or I think I do

Windows Vista this station is but has been working fine until broadband went off in north east, router has lost all settings as well. Its a BT Business Broadband router. It says on router homepage BT2700HG.

Does anyone know how I do this, I have tried in settings to setup a user defined application set at station 1 but still when try to remote access computer comes up with error saying disconnected.

Regards

Can you connect to the "remote" pc over the local network?

Is it possible your IP address has changed?

Have you taken this into account when trying to connect?

Does the internet work from the "remote" PC?

Have you checked that your ISP isn't blocking port 3389? (I have seen this done in the past)

In reply to a post by pmb00cs:

Have you checked that your ISP isn't blocking port 3389? (I have seen this done in the past)

Surely any port blocking by ISP will not be effective within local network?

Hi cheers for reply

Everything was working fine until the broadband service went down and router rebooted back to default settings, but it was setup before me so don't know what was input if you see what I mean.

The BT Business broadband is a static IP address, well we opted for that, as the PDA's that connect up for the drivers would be a nightmare having to keep changing IP addresses in the configuration. The internet works from the remote PC. Don't believe the ISP would block the port, but I could call to check.

Regards

As I understood the post this is about RDP between two different sites, i.e. across the internet

Ok, in that case, if I recall correctly, and I do have to point out that my experience of the BT business hub is neither favourable nor terribly fresh in my mind.

The Hub expects to see the computer you wish to forward ports to in it's DHCP lease table, and will not allow you to otherwise forward ports to a static internal IP (there was a work around, but it escapes me right now).

So you need to check this is the case.

You then need to ensure that address reservation is enabled, and set for the PC you wish to forward 3389 to.

Then it should be fairly straight forward to set the port to forward to the PC you wish too, assuming you have already set it up as a service.

You will then need to save the configuration to flash memory, else next reboot will clear it.

Well, I read it as 2 PCs within the OP's workplace.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Surely any port blocking by ISP will not be effective within local network?

No, true, but then RDP within a LAN wouldn't be affected by an internet outage either, and the model of router would be largely immaterial, with no need to forward ports.

I rather read it as a connection over the internet (as MrSaffron did).

As such I asked about RDP over the LAN as a diagnostic step.

In reply to a post by pmb00cs:

RDP within a LAN wouldn't be affected by an internet outage either,

It could as the outage seems to have resulted in router losing its settings.

We'll never know till OP clarifies

EDIT: OP did say "new system at work". Took this to mean a new process/procedure not a just a new computer.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Tue 02-Nov-10 21:54:03)

Sorry for delay - work from 5am till 4pm so tend to be in bed by 8pm lol

I will try to explain in more detail to clarify things (I will try to host some pictures to show in detail)

* Small taxi firm, we have the main office, and the desk clerks room

* In the main office, we have the BT Business Router, and station 1

* In the desk clerks room we have two PC's. One of which is station 2. The other PC has been brought in recently - will explain shortly

* Station 1 and Station 2 have a system called Mercury on it (taxi booking system)

* Station 3 (other pc in desk clerks room) is used to remotely take over Station 1, so it can use mercury to take bookings but be in same room as Station 2.

* The BT Business Hub is wired directly to station 1. Another ethernet cable comes from router into desk clerks room into a netgear hub, which then connects into both PC's. Hence both can be online and can view webpages, still working now.

* Friday gone, the BT Business Broadband went down, but we also suffered power cuts, which is why BT Hub has defaulted back to original settings. I had to add ports for PDAs back onto router so drivers could logback on. That has been successful.

* Ever since Friday, I can no longer remotely access station 1 from station 3. I believe I have to add something within the settings of the router. I spoke to the company who supports our software and they said I had to add 3389 and point it towards Station 1. I think I've done this but still cannot remotely access it.

Sorry if sounding rubbish explaining but I am a novice when it comes to networking.

If anyone has any ideas where I can post some pictures maybe I could explain more.

Thanks in advance

So all three stations are actually on the same LAN, in which case router settings should not enter into it.
Can all three PC's ping each other? Do all three have Internet access?

If you goto www.whatismyip.com from each of the machines, do they have the same WAN IP address, or are they all different (an easy way of finding out if this is a NAT or NON-NAT setup - most of the advice so far assumes it is a NAT setup.

Your description has me a little worried that you may have opened the RDP port in the NAT part of the router, which may mean people external to the taxi firm could potentially start to guess the passwords - and if successful mess the business up very badly.

Also one further check, care to share the model number of the Netgear Hub, reason for asking is that some people mistake Ethernet routers for hubs, and if one of these is in the mix it would complicate things.


NOTE: The recent outage in the NorthEast should have done nothing that would reset the BT Router.

Ok i'll find out on all PC's

With regards to the outage, we also lost electricity, probably just coincidence. However if the router does get switched off or experience a power cut, should the router not keep the settings that have been saved. So far it keeps defaulting back

It should, if it does this all the time then suggests you are making the changes, but failing to commit them to its flash memory.

Some routers have an apply settings, followed by a save settings button in their web interface.

Okay I had this all wrote before until I was rudely interupted by BT!

1. All three PC's can ping each other.
2. All three PC's have access to internet
3. All three PC's have same IP address
4. Netgear model: Prosafe Switch with POE FS108P
5. I have removed as suggested the port that I had opened.

Regards

In light of this my advice made earlier is not applicable to the remote desktop problem, I had incorrectly assumed you were trying to connect RDP over the internet.

As this is not the case it is a question of how are the RDP sessions initiated?

If by IP address have you checked that all computers have the same IP address as they had before the router rebooted? If so, or if the connection is initiated by NetBios name have you checked the firewall settings on the computer being connected to via RDP?

Next is the IP address a local LAN IP one, when you ping each of the machines.

e.g. 192.168.x.x 172.17.17.x 10.0.0.x for example?

If yes then the BT hub should play no part in things, next question is what OS is on each of the machines, and are you sure the problem is not that a software firewall is blocking things.

Sorry for delay

Got it working, we use to have to type the ip as xx.xx.xx.xx:54541 for station 1 or 54542 if station 2. However tried without the 5454 and working fine. No idea why or how.

But it works

:54541 is the port number. You mean you now type xx.xx.xx.xx:1 ?

No just the IP address, no number at the end. Why would it change?

So no port number. What application are you typing this IP address in to?

It would change because the server (whatever application runs on the PC you're connecting to) has started serving on a different port. If you're using a browser, the default port is 80.

Edited by deleted (Thu 11-Nov-10 08:41:57)

Remote Destop is an application in its own right, not a web browser so port 80 is irrelevant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Protocol

Default port is 3389, so if having to specify a different one, perhaps the server TCP listener port was changed.

No idea but as long as it works. Panic over.

Thanks for the help everyone

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Remote Destop is an application in its own right, not a web browser so port 80 is irrelevant

It was just an example

Default port is 3389, so if having to specify a different one, perhaps the server TCP listener port was changed.

That's what I said.