Remote access thingumy on Windows

[YouMightKnowMe]

My parents have a new Windows 7 laptop that they are having minor problems with (I am assuming it it home edition).

I thought I could remotely control it from my PC to help them out but everything I read on teh web suggests that you can't do this unless you have the ultimate & professional editions of Windows 7....can anyone confirm>?

P.S. I am on Vista professional or business or whatever it is...but also have access to netbooks with Windows 7 Starter edition.

It should be possible. There are various apps that do this, but I have no knowledge of their compatibility with Windows 7.

PC Anywhere was a popular commercial package and VNC was a free package. Google for those and Windows 7.

would logmein work?

It is not really PC anywhere that I want to use...I want to be able to control the CPU...not just the software...

Everything you can do with a computer remotely is software, with the possible exception of remotely controlled power strips, even then it's software in the power strips.

What do you actually mean by controlling the CPU? What are you trying to achieve.

www.logmein.com would allow you full control of the PC - except the BIOS during boot up.

I guess YMKM is remembering the old PC Anywhere or whatever it was which allowed remote access to pull/push files between machines but not view the other PC screen (as far as I can remember).

Use the free version of logmein - it will work even with Firefox on a Mac, Windows Remote is more of a lottery.

x-post

I was also going to say logmein :)

They have to download it (which might tax their tech skills) and after that anyone with the password can access their computer.

yes...it is downloading software they are having probs with so I mighth juts have to trapse half way across the country....but I will make sure I install logmein whilst I am there :-)

I have talked my sisters through the download and install (just be sure to warn of the short blanking of the screen so your parents aren't frightened their PC has been damaged!)

Of course the warnings about 'are you sure you want to run this' can also cause some slight fright for those who have limited experience, but I would hope that if you have tried it out yourself (or run through it in parallel) then you will be able to assure them it is working OK.

In any case you'd need to have registered as a new user, so you can just give them the login details of email and password... I tend to use something like PCremote as the password so it is simple and not a password I use for anything else!