pcAnywhere

[Waterboy]

Does anybody use pcAnywhere? What are your experiences with it?

[assnelbo]

I have used it. It can be a useful tool to help troubleshoot problems on another user's system. However, my experience has been that the screen referesh lags, even on fast connections, which makes it unusable (very annoying) for pretty much everything else.

[JamesBrown]

i like UltraVNC... its real simple to setup plus on the remote end you can use a web broswer without the need of installing any programs

[hayabusafiend]

www.tightvnc.com

Less network traffic than VNC.

[pacifisticuffs]

PCA's not bad. If you're hurting for resources on the host machine, I'd look at Tight VNC or Remote Admin. I use radmin a lot now and have come to like its speed.

My favorite's still plain ol' Remote Desktop if you're just dealing with Windows machines though. I use it daily and it's pretty reliable.

[Likely2BAirborn]

I like dameware. It installs the client remotely on the fly and all you need is admin rights to the client.

[deaconblues]

I'd have to recommend the VNC clients over pcAnywhere...



as for Remote Desktop/Remote Assistance, it's a MS product, therefore likely riddled with security holes...

[l8nighthype]

Terminal Services works great with MS. No problems whatsoever...I use it all of the time when I work from home over our VPN...as I am today...

No security issues...

Cheers!

[zphreak]

Another vote for TightVNC

[Waterboy]

Thanks everyone.

My original question was if anyone had used pcAnywhere and what your experiences were with it.

Now I appreciate everyone recommending all the other software, but only one person has answered my question from experience. I have a copy of pcAnywhere, so I want to know people's experience with that program. Please don't misunderstand, I'm' not being ungrateful, I just need an answer to my original question.

Thank you assnelbo for your response. How long ago did you use it, and what version was it?

[pacifisticuffs]

My biggest gripe with PCA was that I could never use my mouse's scroll wheel with it (this was version 10-something). It was also surprisingly slow, especially compared to Remote Admin (the host was on a 100mbit port in a data center, I connect at home with 1.5/768 DSL). Another problem, although it happened only on occasion (even more rare with the more current versions) was that it would occasionally hang, and not respond to incoming requests anymore. The only option left was to reboot the machine. Also, I don't know if PCA will allow simultaneous remote connections, which isn't necessarily a huge problem, depending on your use.

Annoyances aside, its file transfer features and security options are nice.

[Waterboy]

Originally posted by pacifisticuffs
My biggest gripe with PCA was that I could never use my mouse's scroll wheel with it (this was version 10-something). It was also surprisingly slow, especially compared to Remote Admin (the host was on a 100mbit port in a data center, I connect at home with 1.5/768 DSL). Another problem, although it happened only on occasion (even more rare with the more current versions) was that it would occasionally hang, and not respond to incoming requests anymore. The only option left was to reboot the machine. Also, I don't know if PCA will allow simultaneous remote connections, which isn't necessarily a huge problem, depending on your use.

Annoyances aside, its file transfer features and security options are nice.

Thank you for that information.

[assnelbo]

Originally posted by Waterboy
Thanks everyone.

My original question was if anyone had used pcAnywhere and what your experiences were with it.

Now I appreciate everyone recommending all the other software, but only one person has answered my question from experience. I have a copy of pcAnywhere, so I want to know people's experience with that program. Please don't misunderstand, I'm' not being ungrateful, I just need an answer to my original question.

Thank you assnelbo for your response. How long ago did you use it, and what version was it?

I've used it as recently as 6-8 months ago over a WAN, and about 5 years ago over a dial up connection. I cannot remember the version numbers; I know that sounds bad, but I didn't use it regularly, nor did I purchase the product. One nice thing about the newer version (??.?? :toothless) is that it has a built in file transfer feature, but I do not think that it's any faster than FTP. Perhaps a touch more convenient though, for some, since you don't need to go to DOS or use a third party GUI app...

[RydTher]

at my old job, used it daily, hourly. Very useful to push down software updates to client PCs and Store servers, change configs, etc. Support the endusers (cash registers running on Windoze)
Seemed reasonably quick for what we were doing. Allowed us to take complete control of the remote PC, sometimes to the chagrine of the remote user :)

seemed pretty stable as well.