A Network Attached Windows Box?

Richard Weidmann asks: "Can a Windows box be attached to a local network as freely available resource? I use Mac OS X and Linux but sometimes it is simply convenient to have a Windows computer to do some specific task or run some specific program. I would like to run my Windows computer headless in the network in such a fashion that I can access it easily from the other computers such that: VLC is started, so I see the Windows desktop; the home directory of my current machine is mounted on the Windows box; and my local optical drive can be read from the Windows machine. Has anybody seen such a setup or project?"

Comments

VNC?

[Drantin]

VLC is a Video Lan Client

while

VNC is Virtual Network Computing

Re:VNC?

[who what why]

VNC is the way to go. Install either tightvnc or Real VNC, configured as an NT service, and set the password. Now you can use most desktops apps through VNC (don't bother with anything video related though, although I've never tried that on giga-ethernet).

For network shares, I use Samba on linux. Click through the "My Network Places" tree to find your linux box, select the share you wish to mount and then right-click to select "Map as Network Drive", and you will be automatically connected at boot to the share.

As for optical drive, I guess Samba is the way to go there as well.

To be honest, I agree with the comments below that point out that you have already answered your over-obvious question in the asking... use VNC and Samba.

Terminal Services

[CosmicDreams]

I believe this is what Terminal Services is designed for. If you are fortunate enough to have a terminal Serivices Server around you could also configure your home directory and things like that. For an El Cheapo version of this Find a Windows XP machine and turn desktop sharing on.

The only downside to using the XP machine instead of the TS Server is that it seems to limit you to one connection at a time.

Am I missing something?

[pardey]

VNC and Samba should do the trick. Robin

Remote Desktop

[Chester K]

Windows XP and higher support Remote Drive Sharing and Remote Sound over a regular Remote Desktop connection. Windows 2000 and below support Remote Desktop (well, the same protocol, but it's Terminal Services), but don't support the drive sharing or sound forwarding.

Re:Remote Desktop

[Whatchamacallit]

Actually, this works quite well for me. There is a Remote Desktop Client for Mac OS X available at http://microsoft.com/mac - other products - Remote Desktop Connection for Mac.

It comes down to what you use more often, the Mac or the Linux box. If the Mac is your main workstation then you should have no problems if you run WinXP Pro on the PC and use the Remote Desktop client for the Mac.

My main workstation is a Dual PowerMac G5 w/Dual Apple 17" Studio displays. Secondary machine is a PowerBook G4. I also have a Sun Blade 100 and 3 Linux boxes as well. Then there is the fiance's Sony Vaio desktop. I use RDC to connect to the WinXP Pro box. I simply ssh into the Linux and Sun boxes or forward X11 windows.

You will need WinXP Pro as the Home version does not include Remote Desktop abilities.

you need Citrix

[stonebeat.org]

I think what you need is Citrix. It lets you access your drives as local drive, among other things.

Some options:

[cornice]

This has been done before. Try:

Wine if you just want a few Windows apps on your PC.
Win4Lin if you really want Windows on your PC.
VMWare if you want XP on your PC.
TightVNC if you want to access a Windows box from another box.
Samba if you want to share your drives back to your Windows box.

Tarantella does all this

[Kevin Burtch]

Try Tarantella, made by the folks who USED to be called SCO (the ones who sold the name to Caldera).

This product is much like Citrix, but _much_ easier to administer and requires zero software be loaded on the machines the display is coming from or the ones the display is being forwarded to.
Oh, and it runs on Solaris or Linux!

The client uses any Java capable web-browser... can't get any simpler than that.

You will still need the MS-Windows box to actually run the apps on and provide the display, etc.

Tarantella will not only provide access to your local drives, but also your printers (configurable for security).

The data is also encrypted, so it's safe to use this as a remote-access method via the internet.

http://www.tarantella.com/

As a disclaimer, I should mention that I not only use this at work for remote access, but I work for a Tarantella reseller.
With this in mind, note that I'm pointing you to Tarantella's site, not the company I work for (we won't see any profit if you get it from someone else).
I just happen to like the product better than its alternatives.