Telecommuting During the COVID-19 Corona Virus – Part 1: Remote Access

Telecommuting During the COVID-19 Corona Virus – Part 1: Remote Access

Remote accessing your work computer

Perhaps the most important and critical aspect of tele-commuting is the ability to remotely and securely access your office computer(s). There are dozens of good software options to pick from; some of which can be expensive. What this software does is allow you to view your remote/work computer from home, as if you were sitting at your desk at work. You see the screen of your work computer, use the mouse, keyboard and sound just as you would if you were actually at the computer.

Teamviewer is a great, free remote-access tool (for non-commercial use). Teamviewer is easy to get setup and running with secure remote-access to your remote computer. We use this software extensively for our remote-support service. For you to get this running, you’ll need to download, install and properly configure it on your work/remote computer. You’ll then need to install it on the computer you are going to access work from.

Installation / Configuration of Teamviewer

  1. You’ll need to download Teamviewer on both your “From” and “To” computer (aka host / Client). You can get it from https://www.teamviewer.com/en-us/teamviewer-automatic-download/
  2. Install the software on your Host/Work computer
    1. Choose the option for unattended access – and personal/non commercial in our example.
    2. Hit the finish/install button
    3. Setup a good strong password in the unattended access window that pops up
    4. Note your ID. You MUST know this to connect into the computer.
  3. On your home computer, or whatever computer you are “dialing from”; download and install teamviewer. Since you are not needing to connect INTO the home computer, you can simply choose the default install without the unattended access.

Once all that is done you’re ready to rock! You simply open teamviewer on your home computer, then on the right hand side enter the ID of your office computer, hit connect and type in the password. You now have access to everything on the office computer, as if you were sitting in front of it.

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