Thursday, November 09, 2006

XP Remote Desktop via Mac OS X

How trippy:

XP Remote Desktop on Mac OS X

That's a picture of me on my MacBook Pro, running Windows XP via the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client over a Hamachi VPN.

Sick!

It's quite snappy for standard file browsing. I was even able to log into Ultima Online and get around the game. Granted, I won't be fighting any monsters, as it's a bit laggy in gaming, but it's definitely responsive enough to do little things - like access files and email them to myself!

Hamachi is pretty damn cool. It claims to be a zero-configuration VPN, and it pretty much is. Well, Hamachi is in fact zero config. It's Windows that isn't zero config. I had to do some registry editing to get Hamachi to run as a service under XP, in case I need to reboot that machine remotely. Other than that, piece of cake.

The OS X version of the Hamachi GUI (HamachiX) is still prerelease beta software, but it worked fine for me.

Here are the resources I consulted to get everything running:
Cyberonica - Hamachi How-To
Hamachi Forums - Remote Desktop

If I weren't so sleepy, I'd write up a how-to, since I had to sort of put things together piece-meal from various sources (though the Cyberonica article is the most cohesive one I found).

Hopefully, I can get my Hamachi VPN working at work too, so I can access files on my home PC while at work. Suhweet!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK, this is really awesome. I want you to help me out with a how to in bbaby step format. I tried this using the references you listed and I guess I am not as smart b/c I messed it all up and removed everything from my imac and win xp. so can you help me out? thanks a bunch. feel free to email me at rexkwilliams@yahoo.com

Old Timer said...

Shelley - How did you get remote desktop running on the OS-X MAC? Do you have XP running in the background on the MAC? I am curious about the registry mods too since I may need to remotely reboot my PC from my MAC. Thanks!!

Shelly said...

Hi Dale - I used HamachiX on the Mac - http://hamachix.spaceants.net/

To be able to reboot your PC, you'll need to make sure you follow the instructions to run Hamachi as a service on a PC. See the tutorial about using SrvAny on this page: http://forums.hamachi.cc/viewtopic.php?t=4078

Note that if you purchase the premium version of Hamachi, it comes with the ability to configure itself as a service automatically. If you use the free version, you'll have to install SrvAny and do the registry mods yourself (via the instructions in the link above).

Hope that helps!

PoorLilRichBoy said...

i connect to my pc w/ ms rdp & zone alarm free running on win box & tsclientx on my mac. what added security will i get by using VPN also? I only connect when I'm on my home network.

Unknown said...

Does this work with XP home? I rd that you have to run Terminal which is only available on XP Pro.

Shelly said...

I was running XP Pro, so that is possible.

Unknown said...

With RHUB http://www.rhubcom.com, Remote Desktop, you don’t even need to have a VPN. It uses an advanced security feature that blocks access by IP address. This is in addition to its firewall protection, which is highly secure.