Hadministratora wrote:Tom T., I got the point even from your first post. I just do not believe it is related.
It may not be, but stranger things have happened... After three years of doing support, *trust me* -- especially when it comes to MS stuff.
Hadministratora wrote:I didn't say or even think that it's not worth the time. And you are absolutely right that nothing else seems to help. I guess I'll just have to give it a try.
What would you recommend me to try? Or what are you using?
First, my lawyer insists that I say the obvious: that neither I, this site, Giorgio, or anyone else here is in the business of endorsing third-party products. We can't control how they're made or how you use them, and so cannot be liable for your use or the consequences of using them. If you do not agree to these terms, then do not read or use the following *personal experience*.
OK, the pesky lawyer is happy.
First, I set up what was then a Hamachi (now part of
LogMeIn) VPN, which uses the 5.x address space and AES-256 encryption, with myself as sole Admin, of course. There is a free trial available, and at one time, there was a fully-free version for peronal home use. I believe there still is.
Then I added Grandpa to the network. Note that while my public-facing IP changes occasionally (or I force a change, to mess with the data-miners), the Hamachi address is of necessity static. This will prove to be useful.
Then I tried free trials of two remote-administration tools, Dameware and Radmin. Both proved satisfactory. I went with Radmin as the main one, but kept Dameware, which proved useful when Granddad accidentally undid the auto-start-at-boot for Radmin. I used Dameware to reset Radmin without having to get on an airplane. Your situation may not need this level of redundancy, of course.
What I liked about Radmin: You could configure *two* passwords to access the remote client, with *both* required to authenticate.
You can set the client to accept remote connections only on a given port chosen by the admin, typically in the 5,000-60,000 range.
Of course, certain firewalls can add another layer of protection if they can be set to allow only certain ports for access by a certain remote program.
It was fairly fast, after some user-configurable optimizations of refresh rate, etc. IMHO, speed was more affected by GP having a DSL connection that might have been only 750Kpbs down, and surely not more than 1.5 Mbps, with the usual 1/10th of that for upload speed -- which is what affects how fast his screen shows up on mine. If he'd had my cable speeds, 10 M dn and 1 M up, the performance would probably have been even better.
Mostly, I felt safe. Any scam artist preys on the elderly. To get into GP's machine via remote administration (lots of other ways, of course), he'd first have to crack into an AES-256 encrypted VPN with a crypto-strength pw, then get my express approval to be added to the network. (Or compromise my machine, of course, but that was much less of a concern.) Then he'd have to obtain, crack, or guess two more crypto-strength pws, *plus* guess, in a reasonable number of tries, a random port number from among 50,000+ possibilities. Sound more secure than RDP?
Please note that this was several years ago. Gramps gave up on the Internet a couple of years back, which was a relief, actually. So I don't know how those programs work now, their cost structure, etc. But based on previous experience, the Radmin people seemed to have thought it through pretty well. FWIW. YMMV.