No more hiding in the server room

Remote Control software for Windows

Hey admins,

What Remote Control software do you all prefer? I am partial to Remote Desktop (for servers) and DameWare's Mini Remote Control for workstations. (I'll sometimes use DameWare for servers too, just depends). Any RC solution should be able to handle UAC prompts. Remote Assist used to have problems with that as well as all free versions of RealVNC. I also like solutions that offer the option of disallowing the target user from seeing what is happening during the remote session and also allowing the user to allow or deny the RC session (with a default answer should no answer be given).

Adam Ruth and I built a custom Systems Management tool for a client back in 2005 and we integrated that product with RealVNC (free version). We had to write some allow/deny functionality into the custom solution since RealVNC didn't (at that time) have that option. When Vista came out RealVNC required that you use their payed version to start remote control sessions on Vista or later OSes.

I've since used the pay version of RealVNC and I have found it works quite well with Windows 7. I wrote a blog article on how to deploy RealVNC to windows computers.

I'm interested in what you all use for remote control in your own environments.

Tags: control, deploy, pdq, remote, uac

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sam on December 19, 2010 at 10:55am

Hi Shane,

Ultra VNC is much better compared to RealVNC and it's license free and even free to deploy.

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Permalink Reply by Shane Corellian on December 21, 2010 at 4:49am

Does Ultra VNC still have problems with handling UAC windows?

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Permalink Reply by Alessandro Vozza on December 21, 2010 at 12:24am

we bought a Teamviewer professional license. It works thru firewalls, you can manage host lists and it works very well. Definitely recommended!

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Permalink Reply by Sam on December 21, 2010 at 5:26am

not any more and deploying is also free

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Permalink Reply by Graycat on December 23, 2010 at 11:56pm

We too use RDP for the servers and DameWare on the LAN for client machines / stubborn servers. However I've found that TeamViewer works much better than DameWare for remote clients however the UAC is a pain.

Oh and of course there's always vSphere client console session for VM's that go awry. :) lol

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Egan on January 11, 2011 at 8:58am

I'm working in an environment where we use either Kaseya or GoToAssist to connect to client computers.

Windows 7 and Vista can both be troublesome with both of them. I've had GTA bring up utilities running with admnistrative privileges, that then prevent me from clicking or doing anything.. so i have to try and talk the client though things.. "ok can you expand the event viewer for me please. ok now look in system log. ok scroll. scroll. scroll. stop. look at that one "blabla" ok no keep scrolling"

it's highly frustrating..

Kaseya uses vnc by default, and on some of our w7 hosts, they get an interactive services prompt, or it just fails to connect after an exceedingly annoying period of time.

for servers, I love iLOs or DRACs

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Permalink Reply by Mike Rigsby on January 13, 2011 at 4:08pm

RDP for general purpose work. RealVNC for some systems, and LogMeIn Free for a couple remote users in another state.
The 'tool for the job' seems to change depending on the system or the situation.

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Permalink Reply by Stefan Pynappels on January 14, 2011 at 8:35am

I use RDP for the odd Windows server we have and SSH for all our Linux boxes.

For client support, we use TeamViewer, the only difficulty with it is sometimes when the client runs an older version of TeamViewer, we cannot access it from the iPhone client or a newer version.

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Permalink Reply by Nick Bacon on January 19, 2011 at 10:50am

We use RDPMan for server admin and LogMeIn Free with LogMeIn Central for clients. All the servers have LMI free installed as well as a backup option and vSphere Client where applicable.

LMI copes very well for out requirements and has been welcomed by the user base.

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Permalink Reply by Noj on January 23, 2011 at 4:35am

Prefer RDP on servers, but also use Teamviewer, which is fairly quick to connect, easy to get someone who's needing help to run, works through firewalls etc, and can record the session. can be a little laggy compared to RDP though.

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Permalink Reply by Keith Weitz on March 9, 2011 at 8:46pm

Using RDP for servers and RA for workstations as needed. Also use RA to shadow my citrix sessions with the dual monitor issue in citrix causing problems with shadowing. Also ssh for my linux boxes as needed.