Remote Desktop Win2kPro & Win XP

My wife is beginning to work at home on occassion. Their computer guy had me install Remote Desktop.

I am using at home Win 2000 Pro (SP4) and she is using Win XP on her work computer. I also am running ZoneAlarm and had to give permission to Remote Desktop for it to work. My internet connection is Cable/Roadrunner.

My question is:
Do I have to worry about someone at her work (Boss and/or the computer guy) using Remote Desktop and my IP address and connecting to my computer when I am not there and snooping around?

Is there any way for them to establish an inbound connection to my computer?

THANKS!

 

The Remote Desktop connection is not working both ways. You have to enable it on a computer to be able to connect to it. So if you didn't do anything special, there's no way someone can connect to you.
More than that, using a cable connection, your IP is changing often. It won't help them to see from what IP you entered, it might be a router, a firewall or a NAT of the cable company.
To sumarize, I don't think you have anything to worry. To be on the safe side, be certain that ZA is configured not to accept incomming RDP connections, but outgoing.
Good luck.

 

Thanks for the info. I thought I was safe but I wanted to make sure.

While I am at it, how does she print on my printer at home from applications that are running remotely on her work computer via Remote Desktop?

Thanks again.

 

For the printing part, I'd strongly suggest emailing the item to be printed and do the printing locally.

I'd also suggest zipping the item before sending. Not completely sure why but I've had better luck with things arriving intact when they've been zipped. The compression is also nice for speeding things up but I really like the way it seems to bullet-proof a document with lots of fancy formatting.

 

About the printing question: double-click the Remote Desktop Connection icon. Click on Options and go to Local Resources . Take a look at the lower part, Local Devices. You have a "V" by Printers. This is the reason why your wife is able to print from her applications at work on your printer at home. Meaning: every time your wife connects to her office, the local resources from your computer at home are connected and mapped to the other computer.

 

Windows 2000 can be a client for a Remote Desktop session, but it cannot be a "host ". That is, you can connect to XP, 2000 Server or 2003 Server from a 2000 Pro system, but Remote Desktop cannot be used to connect to a 2000 Pro machine.

Your system is safe.

Remote Desktop and Terminal Services are a cool set of technologies.

The server would have to support the driver for the local printer.

 

Thanks for the info.

So I have to go into the settings for the printers on the remote computer to be able to print on my computer at home?

 

If you look at the EventLog on the server (you might not have access) you will see that it attempts to load the appropriate drivers for your printer when you logon to a Terminal Services session.

For it to work, you'll have to get your Administrators involved, and I'm not sure they'll be amenable to that request...

 

I will have to take it up with the Administrators, shouldnt be a big deal.

Thanks again to all for your help!!!