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

Dear Slashdot

[0x0d0a]

Summary: I have a question. I want to have a headless Windows box on a network with access to my files and want to have remote control over the box. This can be done with VNC and NFS/other network file system. Are there any projects to do this?

Not to flame, but why don't you just *do* what you just suggested?

If I want to delete a file called "foo", I don't submit a story to Slashdot saying "I want to delete a file called 'foo' on my computer. I know that I can do by by running the command rm foo. Has anyone done the same thing before?" I just run the command.

Re:VNC is encrypted

[DA-MAN]

Of course, VNC is encrypted, it just isn't built into all VNC clients/servers. Usually, people run it over ssh, which has the added advatage over Remote Desktop that you don't need any new firewall rules (since ssh usually is already there) and that you don't have to figure out a new key management system.

I've been using VNC since it's inception and it works great for Unix to Unix with SSH doing the encryption. Here we are talkin Linux/Mac OS to Unix. Unless you buy some commercial SSH Server, or set up cygwin's ssh server on the Windows box then it's probably not going to be encrypted.

Most VNC's use encryption only for the password and use plaintext transfers for everything else. Not my ideal solution. Remote Desktop has encryption built into the protocol from the start.

If you like, of course, you can also run VNC over stunnel or IPsec.

I don't even think IPSec allows for you to communicate with machines on the same LAN on the same Subnet. Besides Remote Desktop has encryption covered already. We're talkin Linux/Mac to Windows communication. This is stupid any which way you cut it. Unix to Unix would use VNC over SSH. Who in their right mind would do something this stupid.

When it is useful, some VNC clients/servers (e.g. clients running as Java applets) have the encryption built in.

Name one that does encryption from beginning to end, not just the password. I would like to know if there are any myself.

As usual, the UNIX solution is simpler, more elegant, more flexible, and more functional than the Windows solution. And, as usual, Windows users like yourself just don't get it.

As usual trolls like yourself don't bother to read what the user is asking and bash anyone who doesn't tell them to switch to Unix. Your zealotry is only overshadowed by your stupidity.