Teamviewer – a great ad-hoc support

As I wrote earlier in my blog post Working with Batch, we had a problems connecting to all computers in our branch offices. Since we live on VPN, provided by ISP on his modems/routers, there was always war with theirs technicians.
First of all, we had an old software Symantec PCAnywhere 11 which we used to connect to one computer in that remote office. from that computer we connected to all others. But, PcAnywhare had a problem, you had to setup a port forwarding (PcAnywhere ports are TCP 5631 and UDP 5632) on ISP’s modem to one of those computers. That computer had to have a fixed IP address, or setup DHCP MAC address assignment. But on power outage, thunder struck or clumsy maid, who needed a power source for her vacuum, the modem/router would reset and loose it’s settings. Then you call ISP’s technician to set it up again, hence the war begins. Then we switched to Win7, but PCAnywhere had issues with it. Connection drops, no picture to display and etc.

Then came the revolutionary Teamviewer (further TW).
The free version, set limited time for sessions, when it discovered that you are using it for non-commercial use.
I suggested to my bosses that we should buy this little piece of software. And we did. We bought TEAMVIEWER 6. I must say it isn’t the cheapest software but it worth’s every €cent.

Teamviewer works on the principal of fixed addresses. TW server assigns 9 digit address ID code to every computer. BE CAREFUL after reinstalling a computer the ID CANNOT be changed back!!

Several TW products are there to use 
TW Full is used to connect to other TW devices. It can be used as a standalone software, or you can install it and use it as installed software.
TW Quicksupport is standalone program which user starts on demand. It shows him his ID and generates a random password. TW QS can be also edited (for commercial users) with custom logo or text.
TW Host is an installation of TW as a service on a remote device.
TW QuickJoin is a standalone software, with which an user can connect to your presentation.
TW Portable is a standalone program, which allows you to use it on a USB stick and connect everywhere from anywhere.
TW Manager is a product for central managing your partner ID’s. It can use either a file as a database or a MSSQL database.
TW Web is a web service. You must create your username on TW and you use it as a partner list. Then login to TW Web and you can connect also from anywhere.

With TW you can easy set black and white list (BE CAREFUL after reinstalling a computer the ID CANNOT be changed back!!). Set access control, set password complexity, or set permission to change TW settings. You can transfer files,record sessions, transfer audio or video, and even chat. Organize presentations and meetings.
You can even install VPN adapters on each side and connect through VPN.
The TW is a great time and nerve saver.

Good Luck