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Absolutely agreed here.Hi Eion,
However the awful job of maintaining the Windows computer's of a social
club (U3A computer group's donated laptops for use in meetings,is
different , I bring them home about every two months for update etc. One
cannot remotely maintain machines that are disconnected from
electricity, switched off and locked in a cupboard!
True, but it's probably the safest thing for a windows computer. Although Windows computers are now much more secure than they were, their biggest threat now is from Microsoft, with at least three updates in the past week causing major outages for Windows 10 and 7 users. The win10 one last week caused lots of people to lose their search ability (part of the menu) completely - and this was caused by Microsoft updating something in the background, bypassing all user and corporate update settings. Then they had the gall to blame an 'external fibre provider'... Unbelievable....
Sorry, ranting. But yes, point taken. Can't update a computer that's turned off.
RDP is the preferred way to remotely control windows machines, but it's definitely not something to expose to the internet. A VPN or... A ssh tunnel (phew, back on topic) to a linux machine on the same network could let you tunnel securely to any machine it can reach....I can see a use for remote maintenance of older computer's I have
changed to Linux for folk with 'problems', (age, house bound, onset of
dementia, those not capable of Linux maintenance but who can use them as
consumer's). I have three or four such folk I help.
Good man. Sadly my own mother's dementia has deteriorated way beyond using any form of device, but I do appreciate very much the lifeline this can bring for those isolated for whatever reason. Deep respect to you for helping.
Social problem, would be asking them to allow me to remotely log in to
maintain. This would be a major *no* to their privacy thinking.
(They do not mind me turning up to maintain *in their presence* at their
homes.)
Yes, and that is a real concern. Of course, you can set up automated updates for most distributions, and it can work well. The odd problem of course, but generally such things are well behaved.
How about a legitimate use of the procedure scammers often use? Ring the client with a //pre-arranged// password, then they get an onscreen prompt to allow remote access which they allow knowing it is a person they know and trust?
Julian
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