Hello and thank-you again for allowing me to get some assistance to my queries,issues.

I have now 4 computers connected to my 2WIRE router. I would like to assign one or two of the PCs to be able to access them from my office or away from home.
How can I setup one PC in order for me to access it remotely when I'm away from my home computer.

I tried to setup my computer using my firewall settings on my 2wire wireless router but I must be missing a step or flat out not settiing the port or services correclty on my router.

I go to my 2wire setup - selected firewall and click on advance settings - chose the PC I want to remote to and added Wndows XP Remote Desktop.

How can I tell what port to assign it to and how can I access the PC remotely away from home.

I was told we can access the home computer via remote desktop as long as it is setup correctly on my 2wire router and that the computer is turmed on - I can initiate a command - mstsc /v:hostip:port#.
(e.g. mstsc /v:154..6.32.123:33399)

Can anyone help me setup a home PC on my 2wire router in order for me to access it form anywhere.

Thanks in advance..

Cheers!

If you want to access the computers with full functionality, such as you would have if you were sitting right there at it, then I would use a program such as PCAnywhere or LapLink Gold, which will give you decent security.

If you're just wanting to transfer files, one of the most secure ways is to install an FTP server program, which can be set up for access by any computer with a link containing the proper IP address, login and password. This is what I use. Take a look at FileZilla for a free client and server. The client is self-contained and can be put on a USB drive. With this you can put the IP, login and password in the program for quick and easy access from any computer and it will allow transferring files in either direction.

Jimholly's suggestions are correct, but since you indicated that you want to use Microsoft Remote Desktop, here's how to set that up.

On each computer that you want to connect to, change the "listening" port. Each computer should have a unique one. Microsoft's KB is here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306759.
I suggest that one computer A you set the port to 3390 and on computer B port 3391.
Jot down computer A and computer B's IP addresses, you will need them to plug into your firewall/router.

On your firewall/router you configure two incoming redirects.
One is: forward all incoming TCP packets on port 3390 to computer A's IP address.
Second: forward all incoming TCP packets on port 3391 to computer B's IP address.

Now from ourside your home, use XP Remote Desktop to connect to your router's IP address, on port 3390 if you want to connect to computer A, or port 3391 if you want to connect to computer B.
In the Remote Desktop Connection window, you can specify: "154.6.32.123:3390" or "154.6.32.123:3391".

Note that you can use any port above 1024, but some are used for other protocols/programs.
Instead of 3390 and 3391 you could use 33389 and 33390 for example.

Hope this helps,

ronald.

Thank-you very much for all your inputs and suggestions. I will put them in use and advise of the outcome. Appreciate all your help/guidance rknol & jimholly and all of SAF.

Cheers !!

There's also the Logmein remote access, really nice:

https://secure.logmein.com/home.asp?lang=fr

good luck
Winandy

PS: choose your language, my url is in french language