Using Remote Desktop Connection to connect to your office computer from home.

The Remote Desktop Connection allows you to control your office computer from home just as if you were sitting at it, including copying files from one to the other.
 

Power Settings: Standby/Hibernate
My tests so far showed that XP’s remote desktop connection will not wake a computer from Standby or Hibernate even with the Bios set for “Remote Wake Up” though it is possible that I’ve missed some configuration detail that will allow this.

The computer Power Options can be set to put the monitor and disk drive to sleep and with these set and the computer asleep remote desktop will wake the computer.

So in Control Panel, Power Options, set Standby and Hibernate to “Never” and set the monitor to around 30 minutes and the hard disk to 30 minutes or an hour. This will do a lot to save power and wear on the computer while it is waiting to be activated by remote desktop. Most running jobs should keep the hard disk from falling asleep, but if a particular program does not manage to keep the drive awake enough to run the job efficiently then the hard disk setting will have to be set to a longer time period or even to never if necessary.
 
How to Activate Remote Desktop
  • Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, Remote
  • Check the box “Allow Users to connect remotely to this computer”
  • By default you will be the only user allowed to connect.
  • Note the Full computer name of this computer -- in Win XP it is displayed in the Remote Desktop window; or use the IP address (if it isn't using DHCP--which most of ours do at I.U.)  in Settings, Network Connections, Local Area Connections, Properties, TCP/IP properties (129.79.90.xxx); you’ll need the full computer name or address to remotely connect.
How to Connect from a remote computer

  • If it is an XP computer choose Start, Programs, Accessories, Communications, Remote Desktop. You’ll enter the IP address in the “connection” window, but first click the options button and look at the various tabs.

  •  Under Local Resources you might set “sound” to “Leave at Remote computer”.

  •  If you want access to your drives, check the box Disk Drives in the local devices section of this window; this maps all the drives to new letters, but shows their original lettering as well. Under the “experience” tab set the connection speed to whatever you’re using to connect; modem, LAN, Broadband or custom.
If it is not an XP computer you will have to use the XP CD and install the Remote Desktop Connection:

To install Remote Desktop Connection (32-bit computers)
  1. On the computer running Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000, insert the Windows XP Professional compact disc into your CD-ROM drive.
  2. When the Welcome page appears, click Perform additional tasks, and then click Set up Remote Desktop Connection.
  3. Follow the directions that appear on your screen.