Remote Access from Macbook Pro to Windows 10 PC Help

Hi all

I have a couple of Apple products like an iMac and Macbook pro and was wandering what programs are available for myself to remote access and help my Mothers issues or small problems Mothers get from time to time on here Windows 10 Pc.

I generally sort my mothers questions and problems when i visit her from time to time,but she lives some 80 miles from my present address so a program where i can take control of her windows PC would be useful.

I don't mind paying for the product as long as its easy to use with clear instructions and not something that is going to confuse my older Mother.

Im no technical wizard so basic programs with ease of use and understanding is a must,can anyone on here recommend or provide whats on offer with links to the programs so i can help my Mother out on occasions without having to visit the premises.

She is a older person but is quite good on a PC but for some unknown reason gets a little frightened when downloading updates.

At present she has had a upgrade to Windows 10 but her outlook emails no longer work which i read is a ongoing issue,she has Bt Broadband and they have confirmed there are problems.

Apart from this issue i would like to help her do other things from my house and i thought it was about time i had some sort of remote access that was easy to use to help her when i could.

Thanks and any advise of remote programs links will be extremely useful.

There are a number of products based around VNC that would probably fit. Been a while since I have used them but RealVNC or UltraVNC used to be pretty popular. Only problem is you will probably need to open the ports on the router to get it working.

For simplicity a lot of people use services like Logmein. Personally I don't like it but that is more from a corporate perspective, for home use it is probably one of the best services.

EDIT: Just remembered another one similar to Logmein is GoToAssist.

EDIT2: This may be of interest

Edited by ian72 (Tue 08-Sep-15 11:48:11)

Many Thanks Ian appreciate the time links and help provided by yourself,i shall now take a look

Just took a quick look at the sites,mainly American programs and a monthly subscription which I'm not that keen on to be honest as i will not be using it that much and was hoping for something from a UK site and possibly just a one of payment if there were no free decent remote programs available .

Yes there is a 14 day trial and a month trial on the leading two in that ratings page you sent me,but they are way to expensive and unless i was running a business where its essential it would be a total waste of money on my part.

I was hoping there was a easy possibly free solution to this issue,but many thanks Ian for your help,will have to do some Google searches to see if i can find a remote program thats not subscription based.

Just looked at the Gotoassist which costs a whopping $69 a month ,looking at whats on offer it would be far easier and much cheaper to continue driving to my Mothers looking at the costs of these programs.

i don't think these are aimed at the basic user but are more Company orientated .

Edited by time2die (Tue 08-Sep-15 12:59:18)

Agree, VNC server works - use it on our company's VPN. Another I have used is Teamviewer which is also free and seemed to work pretty well.

Teamviewer is indeed very good and still has a free version, I use it across continents. Your relative has to install it, run it and read out a login and password over the phone or skype and away you go. Simple as can be.

Funny thing is i just downloaded that program after taking a look on Google,cheers for the information though

The VNC programs are generally free but take slightly more effort to set up.

Thanks Ian for your time and informative post,just out of interest what exactly does VNC stand for ?

Virtual Network Computing - wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing

Cheers Guys I could have Googled it but hey Ho !

I did use Logmein for a few years; but prefer TeamViewer, without trying any others.

With TeamViewer, you can organise the two or more PCs in to a group, so that as long as the remote device is switched on and TV running, you can log-in without having to phone/Skype your mother.

I have used it across 5 PCs running various versions of Windows; and also another running Ubuntu Linux, the latter having some slight restrictions.

I have not used it to/from any others such as Mac etc.

It has three distinct modes of working, of which I generally use VPN.

More remotely, I have used it to access my son's PC about 500 miles away, using the temporary form, set up using e-mail; and requiring additional passwords, ie his PC is not part of my local group, although I get automatic notification of when he starts up his PC!

-------------------

I also find it particularly useful to effectively enlarge the screen of my ASUS Netbook, if I want to do some thing finicky on that, hence avoiding having to find VGA cables and the like.

Edited by deleted (Tue 08-Sep-15 15:24:36)

Your mum will need to download vncserver and install it - set a password etc. Once she starts vncserver, it will tell you the IP address to connect to, and she will need to tell you this and the password.

You can then use vnc to access her machine and control the mouse / keyboard etc. I'm not sure if it will work across NAT etc - someone else may be able to answer that better as I only use it on a VPN with Macbooks at both ends.

This is where Teamviewer is better IMHO, you just need a user name and password, no messing with IP addresses. A bit like Skype (which allows displaying your screen to a remote user, but Skype does not allow interacting in any way, but you can still talk at the same time.) Skype is however useful as you can use it for voice at the same time as Teamviewer / vnc.

Oh and get rid of Outlook. It's awful, on a Windows box Thunderbird is much simpler, and on a Mac avoid all MS tools, they're dead slow!

The VNC ports would need to be forwarded on the router to the PC IP address. And it will be the public IP address that would be needed rather than the private IP. Also, if it isn't a static IP then might need a service like DynDNS to get a DNS host address for the IP that updates when the IP changes.

So, more work than for some of the other services. The benefit of VNC is that you aren't using 3rd party servers at any point. Logmein and GoToAssist both use 3rd party servers to avoid the effort of setting up port forwarding etc (and I assume Teamviewer does as well although I've never looked at that one).

In reply to a post by keith969:

and on a Mac avoid all MS tools, they're dead slow!

I'm not sure what you mean by this as I'm running Win 10 on my Macbook Pro at full speed.

I use the native OSX Windows Office tools from Microsoft (sometimes). Sounds like you are running a W10 virtual machine on your mac? IMHO Microsoft in the last 20 years deliberately crippled the speed of Office on Macs. Or, they just didn't understand how to port their code correctly.

I write code for both Windows, Linux and OSX. It runs just as fast on all of them. But then this is using a good third party gui toolkit (Qt) rather than the rubbish MS use.

Mac equivalents to Office are much faster, can write Office formats for Excel/Powerpoint/Word and are generally easier to use. I have them on my Mac, but rarely use them.

Also the Mac ones are free

It uses Bootcamp.