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A Network Attached Windows Box?

Posted by Cliff on from the this-shouldn't-be-too-hard dept.

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?"

9 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. VNC? by Drantin · · Score: 4, Informative

    VLC is a Video Lan Client

    while

    VNC is Virtual Network Computing

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  2. Terminal Services by CosmicDreams · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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    1. Re:Terminal Services by GiMP · · Score: 5, Funny

      There is also a 180-day evaluation of Windows 2003 Server. You have to reinstall every 180 days but you have to do that anyway.

    2. Re:Terminal Services by DA-MAN · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Or you can get a Windows XP machine, and buy WinConnect Server XP. It allows you to have up to 21 Terminal Server connections on Windows XP.

      It works really well. I'd also suggest using rdesktop on Linux and the Windows Remote Desktop Client on the Mac.

      Remote Desktop is much better than VNC, especially when used over the internet because VNC is not encrypted at all. Remote Desktop includes built in 128 bit encryption.

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  3. Am I missing something? by pardey · · Score: 5, Informative

    VNC and Samba should do the trick. Robin

  4. Remote Desktop by Chester+K · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  5. Dear Slashdot by 0x0d0a · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  6. A Network Attached Windows Box? by pizza_milkshake · · Score: 4, Funny

    i wouldn't do that.

  7. Some options: by cornice · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.