What to Do When Remote Desktop Does Not Work

One of the best features of Windows that began with Windows XP and continues with Vista and Windows 7 is Remote Desktop. With Remote Desktop you can actually take control of another Windows XP or above desktop or server.

With the Professional version or server version you can setup that machine to be able to be controlled by another workstation or server.

But what do you do if Remote Desktop does not work to let you access a particular workstation? This can be because you do not have the Professional version of Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, but there can be other reasons too.

It is very frustrating if you normally access a computer via Remote Desktop and now, all of a sudden, Remote Desktop is not working for remote access to the computer.

This is happening to a lot of people lately because they have an nVidia display adapter and they have updated their video drivers. Unfortunately, nVidia is recently getting a reputation for distributing buggy video drivers, a crown that used to go to ATI.

To make matters worse, Microsoft is WHQL-certifying those drivers as being sound and stable.

One of the "bugs" in these nVidia drivers is that Remote Desktop will crash when allowing another computer to take control of it. The person at the remote PC trying to access the host PC only gets a message, after about a minute, that the host PC cannot be contacted. Only a cryptic message in the event log of the host PC gives any clue that something is wrong.

So what is the answer when Remote Desktop will not work?

Personally, I need a remote access solution that will work right every time, not just when it feels like it.

With Murphy's Law, you know that the problem is usually going to strike when least convenient.

Since Windows built in Remote Desktop has shown itself to be unreliable to me, I have chosen to rely on a third party, non Microsoft program for my remote access needs. After trying several of these products, I settled on GoToMyPC from Citrix Online.

Citrix is a company that has worked with remote computing technology for a very long time and has a great reputation. GoToMyPC was one of the very earliest programs to offer safe, secure and convenient remote access to your computer over the internet.

I find GoToMyPC to work correctly, quickly and conveniently every single time I go to use it, and that is the kind of reliability I need - especially when traveling.