Remote Control Without Software Installation
I’ve used a remote control / remote access tool that few of my colleagues have heard about. It’s a free utility called gencontrol, and the link for the .exe download is here.
This requires a Windows domain, or that the workstation you are trying to connect to has matching credentials from the workstation you’re currently logged on to. In other words, if you’re on a workstation as a local admin, when you connect to another workstation, it’s admin account has to have the same password. Period. On a Windows domain, you have to have admin rights on the machine to which you wish to connect.
I put this little utility on the desktop of nearly every AD Domain Controller I administer. It’s fast, small, light on resources, and works with Windows 9x all the way through XP. I haven’t tried it with Vista.
With one click, it connects to a remote workstation by pushing the install files to the remote workstation, starting the service, and then connecting back the server or workstation from which you initiated control. No installation required.
Sometimes when you end the remote session, or if the remote session abnormally terminates or crashes, the vnchooks.dll file will be locked and in-use on the target workstation. Unfortunately, the gencontrol program doesn’t like it if it tries to reconnect to an abnormally terminated session - it will try and recreate, or push, the required files to the workstation, at which point it will see the existing files, and promptly throw an error - denying reconnection. The only solution I have is the remote restart: open cmd.exe and issue “shutdown /r /m \\nameofnaughtyworkstation /t 00″.
You’ll have to wait for the system to come up again, at which point, you have to browse to \\nameofnaughtyworkstation\c$ and delete the VNCTEMP directory. From there, you can reconnect with gencontrol.
If someone knows how to unlock an in-use file on a remote system, please let me know.
In short, this is one-click remote control that has no installation, little overhead, and can really save the day if you need remote control of a workstation on your network.