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Back to My Mac from a PC?
Posted by Adam Pash at 6:00 AM on March 13, 2008
Reader Ryan writes to ask:
I loved your column about setting up Back to My Mac for free, but I've got a Mac at home and a Windows PC at work, so what I really want is to get Back to My Mac from a Windows PC. Is it possible to get Back to My Mac from Windows?Since the tools we used in our setup are really just versions of VNC and FTP tools baked into Leopard, and VNC and FTP are about as old and widely supported as time itself, it most certainly is. Check out the details for getting back to your Mac from a Windows computer after the jump.
In essence, the question is whether or not you can connect to a VNC and an FTP server from Windows, because that's really all our faux Back to My Mac solution is using, and the answer, of course, is yes, you can.
In fact, we've already covered all the tools necessary here on Lifehacker. First, to connect use the Screen Sharing portion of your setup, you can just download and install a VNC client on your Windows PC (like the free, open source TightVNC). We've actually even covered how to remote control Leopard with TightVNC before, and you can go to that post for a full rundown, but for a quick refresher, just open the Sharing pane of your System Preferences, click on Screen Sharing -> Computer Settings, tick the box labeled "VNC viewers may control screen with password," and enter a password. Once you've done all that, you can just point TightVNC to the URL you set up in the original faux Back to My Mac post and log in with the password you just set up.
As for file access, if you use the FTP access we set up in the Back to My Mac post, you can use any FTP client to connect to it (might I suggest previously mentioned FileZilla). On the other hand, if you want that Back-to-My-Mac feeling of browsing your filesystem inside the default file explorer—in this case Windows Explorer—we've also detailed a couple of ways to use Explorer as an FTP client. You can either type the address in the Explorer address bar or map an FTP drive in Explorer. Whichever you choose, you can browse those files just like you would any other filesystem on your Windows box, making it very much like Back to My Mac, but from a Windows computer.
Keep in mind, as I discussed in the original article, that there are security concerns with this method. Hope that helps!
Tags: ask lifehacker | file sharing | ftp | how to | remote control
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
shamowfski
Posted 6:53 AM 13/3/08
I also use logmein. Works great. I have it installed on every PC (and Mac) I use. I can get to work from home, home from work. Very convenient.
shamowfski
DaveYHZ
Posted 6:53 AM 13/3/08
I've been using www.LogMeIn.com to control my mac from my pc, my pc from my mac, and my VMWare Fusion PC from anywhere. It's free so long as you don't need remote print or file access.
Maybe give that a try.
DaveYHZ
jennifert
Posted 6:53 AM 13/3/08
This seems cool. With the ftp connection, how secure is this?
jennifert
Jefeweizen
Posted 6:53 AM 13/3/08
Thanks for the great write-ups on doing this. I was able to work all of this out a couple of weeks ago, but was unable to get it to work. After going through the steps again last night, I'm still unable to access my Mac Pro from work (either VNC or FTP), yet I'm able to remote into Windows. I'm to the point of suspecting that OS X has a firewall I need to open up? Anyway, that's the focus for tonight's troubleshooting.
Maybe others can post if they are having similar issues...
Jefeweizen
robertandrews
Posted 7:52 AM 13/3/08
I bashed my head against a brick wall with VNC for weeeeeeks. Read all the advice on Lifehacker, other blogs, forums for individual VNC clients/servers, asked on Yahoo Answers, eventually realised I needed to employ port forwarding in the router settings to allow traffic through, as well as open the relevant port.
Sod all that.
I turned to LogMeIn and it works just fine.
My scenario was connecting my Mac to my parents' Windows Vista for remote support.
robertandrews
joelena
Posted 7:52 AM 13/3/08
@jennifert: Unless you add ssh tunneling or a Virtual Private Network, all of your FTP traffic is passing unencrypted, and while your VNC session can be encrypted, the VNC password is sent unencrypted.
I personally use VNC (or RDP for my Vista Business box) and Windows file-sharing, secured by a Hamachi VPN.
Gina covered Hamachi and VNC here: [lifehacker.com]
joelena
thatpablo
Posted 7:52 AM 13/3/08
I've been using VNC (over an SSH tunnel, for extra-spicy security) to access my home Mac from my work PC. It works as advertised, but it's slooooow, even with a pretty fast connection on both ends.
I'm pretty sure the poor performance stems from the way VNC works, since it transmits large chunks of the screen, pixel by pixel, every time your remote screen changes.
Windows Remote Desktop, on the other hand, is lightning-quick by comparison (even if it's running virtually on the very same remote Mac, which is a neat trick). This has to do with Windows' proprietary RDP protocol, which takes advantage of some deep hooks into the internals of the operating system.
I've heard that using Screen Sharing.app performs better than VNC, but I haven't used this, since I only have the one Mac. Unfortunately, Apple hasn't released a non-Mac version of their client, which leaves VNC as the only free cross-platform option.
thatpablo
shockwaver
Posted 8:50 AM 13/3/08
I suppose my comment in the previous article would have been better here, but I've got a small howto written up that shows how to do it with multiple users (I only post this again because I know how long it took me to piece the info together):
[geekravings.blogspot.com]
shockwaver
Geoff
Posted 10:31 AM 13/3/08
I also say LogMeIn is the way to go. Painless to set up, no ports to forward. Install and go. Then using e-mail or my personal FTP I can transfer files.
Geoff
Adam Pash
Posted 11:58 AM 13/3/08
@Dominik Reinmund: It's not that LogMeIn isn't a great solution—we've written about it before. This is just another alternative that uses the tools built into Leopard.
Adam Pash
Dominik Reinmund
Posted 11:58 AM 13/3/08
WHY, WHY, WHY is LifeHacker publishing all these complicated ways of remote controlling computers ? What's the advantage ?
LogMeIn, that's all you need. Unless you are a Unix geek, and you want to SSH into your box.
For everyone else: save yourselves some headaches and use LogMeIn.
-t
Dominik Reinmund
Jefeweizen
Posted 11:11 PM 13/3/08
FWIW - I tried LogMeIn last night, and it didn't work for me either. I got an error message that read "Error: Access is denied."
I'm beginning to think it's an OS X firewalling issue. Any pointers on how to check into that? (I'm new to Apple.)
Jefeweizen
Jed Taylor
Posted 11:11 PM 13/3/08
Jed Taylor
I do not understand why FTP, as is, is even presented as a valid option. It is not even slightly secure and opens up all of your files to anyone that snoops your unencrypted username and password. It just seems irresponsible to even present it as a valid option. But maybe it is just me that feels that way.
Jed Taylor
FOLBlog
Posted 7:43 AM 14/3/08
The only way to take control of my iMac from my PC with Vista has been using TightVNC.
VNC 4.1.2 or later doesn't work.
FOLBlog
jonnyboy
Posted 7:43 AM 14/3/08
You can secure the connection using SSH tunneling. I don't use SSH tunneling for this specifically, but for web proxy, web access, etc. Basically you build a tunnel from your work/remote PC to the Mac and forward the VNC port through the SSH connection and then run VNC using localhost as the host your VNC'ing to. I am sure someone can explain this better, but it works and that's what counts .... Jon
jonnyboy
Molly O'Poverty
Posted 1:02 PM 14/3/08
I wasn't able to get LogMeIn to work on two macs in my house on the same network! I haven't been able to get ChickenoftheVPN (or whatever it's called), Hamanchi, Bosco's Screen Share or anything else to work either, for that matter. And I'm a smart cookie - at least when it comes to Macs.
Molly O'Poverty