Remote Desktop Connection to a home computer from work

Can you remotely connect to a computer that's set on a workgroup if your laptop is on the same workgroup but on a different network?

2 Answers

Yes. The workgroup is irrelevant. If you have Remote Desktop access to your home computer (through any firewall), you just need to put in the proper username and password.

there is absolutely no need for your computer to be on the same workgroup. This only applies in the case of domains, and even then you can specify a different domain by typing the username as "domain\username".

To setup RDP from your work to your house, you need to do the following:

1)Enable RDP on your computer. This is usually in control panel > system > remote. Guide to enabling RDP

2)Setup static IP on your Home PC. This is so that your router knows which IP to forward RDP requests to when you remote back home. When setting up a static IP, ensure that you set your DNS, subnet mask and default gateway correctly. You can get this by opening cmd and using the ipconfig /all command to get your subnet mask, default gateway (most likely your router) and DNS Server IPs (also most liekly your router) - but do this before you start making changesGuide to Static IP in win7/8/8.1

3)Setup port forwarding. Remote Desktop uses TCP port 3389. You will need to forward this IP to your PC so that your router knows what to do with requests on this port. This will help forward any requests directly to your PC. Ensure that the IP you forward to is the IP you just setup for your PC. This webpage contains guides on port forwarding for loads of router models. Failing that, Google is your friend

4)find out what your external IP is. This page will tell you. This is the external IP of your router and is the address you will need to enter into your remote desktop client while at work. This will send an RDP connection to your router, which will then be forwarded to your pc by the router config from step 3 to your computer ip setup in step 2

5)optional! You could then go one step further. If you have a website or registered domain name, you could register your routers IP as a DNS record (you can also do this for free.. Google "Dynamic DNS Service") so that you can Remote desktop to "mypc.mydomain.com" instead of 12.34.56.78

Hope this helps.