I would welcome discussion of experience people have had with supporting a family member's computer remotely.For example, my mother (barely computer literate) frequently has questions ("what should I do with this pop-up?") and problems that require some knowledgable support.I live 400 miles away. Resolving things over the phone is a painful experience, with my mother being my eyes and hands. A knowledgable family member (actually a certified tech) lives closer; but he is not as available.I have heard about, but know almost nothing about, MS Remote Terminal and a product called Logme in Rescue.Do these have equivalent capability with respect to remote control of someone's computer? Are there other products that do pretty much the same thing?I got some experience, from my mother's point of view, with "Rescue" when I had a debug session with Symantec techs. They use "Rescue". I was very impressed with its capabilities and user interface.I liked the fact that "Rescue" automagically reconnected after the system was restarted (and I logged in as a user with admin capability).I also liked the fact that I had to connect to them first. I do __not__ want a solution where anyone can connect to my mother's computer over the internet if they know the right things (whatever that might be).One issue with "Rescue" -- or at least, Symantec's use of it: it required that I connect to a web site using IE. Of course, that would mean that a web server is running on the support person's computer -- moi!I hope that is not the only way to make the connection to a "Rescue" server. I might need to ask the "Rescue" people, unless someone here has experience with it.Anyway, any thoughts or suggestion of things that I should consider in evaluating alternatives would be appreciated.1 person needs an answerI do too

HiThis is currently the easiest solution, and it is free.http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx Jack-MVP Windows Networking. WWW.EZLAN.NET

Jack wrote:This is currently the easiest solution, and it is free.http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspxYes, it is tempting. Thanks for the pointer. Some first-reactions....1. Do you have any first-hand experience with TeamViewer?2. I am always suspicious of free software -- especially anything this complex (more than a simple search tool), and especially something that comes in a box and has a sales and support staff behind it. How can a company make money if it's free? Do they have ulterior motives.I know: Netscape was free. But frankly, I never understood their business model either.

HiWhile I understand your general sentiment, there are many Honest helpful software developers that provide excellent free software.This specific one works under the Model of personal use only.If you are a professional user, you have to pay for the service.The idea here is Not the software but he Service. I.e. the use of their server as a mitigating server to avoid the need of extensive remote configuration (especially when the remote user that gets the help does not know how to configure sophisticated remote software, find it external/internal IPs, and open ports through Routers).If you want to do Remote on your own from scratch, use Windows Remote Desktop (RDT0, or UltraVNC (UVNC).http://www.ezlan.net/vnc.html & http://www.ezlan.net/myip.htmlIn case of RDT and UVNC you probably will have to go one time and configure the remote location and make it automatically ready for remote control.Team Viewer software is actually UltraVNC dressed up. They do not charge for the software since Ultra VNC is freeware.I use Windows native Remote Desktop, Stand alone UltraVNC, and Team Viewer, all of them work very well.The decision which one to use (in my case) depends on the circumstances of the specific remote connection.In your case, Team Viewer seems to be the right solution. Jack-MVP Windows Networking. WWW.EZLAN.NET