I need to remote control a PC that is behind a SOHO ADSL router (netgear or similar). I do not have access to the password for his router so I cannot make changes on it. I can install software on his PC though.
What remote control software is best that can work through http/https (I am assuming his router only has those ports open)? It also needs to work without having a person at the other end, as I will be accessing the PC out of business hours.
I use Windows Live Mesh (www.mesh.com). Once you have it setup, you don't need to accept invitations. You will need a Microsoft Passport account for it though.
You can access it via the Mesh Client or from http/https.
-JFV
I will say Teamviewer It's free for personal use.
You should check out LogMeIn which works really well even with the free version.
You can reconfigure most VNC and RDP servers to accept connections on the http port. It is also usually easy to turn off the option requiring user acceptance.
Provided the router will forward the incoming http traffic to your computer, you should be able to use UltraVNC, tightVNC etc, or the default MS Remote Desktop Connection program.
You may also need to add exceptions for the Windows Firewall.
If you're not afraid of shelling out a couple of bucks in the process, you could try Copilot for free for a couple of minutes and then buy a day pass or something like that if you like the functionality.
I use both teamviewer and LogMeIn and recently trialled almost every remote control software there is but here are my top free ones:
LogMeIn.com is very good... free version has no restrictions (non-commercial obviously) and allows you to access computers unattended. I use this a lot between my home pc/laptop and work computer. It has some restrictions like not being able to copy files between computers, remote sound and printing etc that you can pay extra for (which is probably worth it), but you can copy and paste text across computers ok.
TeamViewer is also very very good... I have just bought the a commercial license which is good for the lifetime of the software (i.e. no yearly subscription). The free version is ideal and I bought the commercial version because I offer remote support to my customers. The free version is the same as the commercial version. You can move files between computers (unlike LogMeIn) and you can also setup and connect to unattended computers.
LogmeIn is web browser based on the support computer and you need to install software on the client computer. TeamViewer is software based (you need to install a small .exe on both the client support computer).
Both of these uses Port 80 (http) so you will never have any issues of getting though firewalls / routers etc.
On the otherhand there are programs such as UltraVNC, RealVNC, Remote Session Support etc which are a lot more difficult to get up and running but you dont need to rely on a external server to relay the session. I started with these but had so many issues and was difficult trying to explain to a customer what check-boxes to tick, untick etc, and I had speed issues as the control of the client PC always seemed sluggish and unresponsive. You also need to open a port on your firewall (or setup your own server to relay remote sessions).
The best overall remote control is LogMeIn because you can use it from any computer followed very closely by Teamviewer.
