Remote Control From Windows

It's ten o'clock at night when you get the call: The art department's having an issue on the XServe. On Mac OS X, you could use Apple Remote Desktop to access the machine, but Apple doesn't offer administration tools for Windows. How can you control a Mac remotely when you aren't using a Mac yourself?

The answer is VNC (Virtual Network Computing), an open source desktop sharing system built directly into Mac OS X (and at the center of Apple's new "Back To My Mac" and screen sharing features in Leopard). Once configured as a VNC server, any Macintosh system can be accessed from a Windows VNC client, allowing you to view and control the current user session.

Open System Preferences on your Macintosh and choose "Sharing" from the third row. In the Sharing pane, check "Remote Management" from the "Service" column, then click the "Computer Settings..." button (called "Apple Remote Desktop" and "Access Privileges" respectively in Tiger). When the settings dialog appears, check "VNC viewers may control screen with password", and choose a strong password to enable remote access. If the Mac you're trying to reach isn't on the same network as your client machine, you'll need to configure your router or firewall to forward port 5900 to it as well.

That's it. Now when you need to remotely control that Mac, you can point the VNC client of your choice at the machine's IP and log in with the password you just assigned. There's no further authentication process built in (and no data encryption being used), so you'll want at the very least log out of that machine when it's not in use to minimize security risks. You'll also need to set your VNC client to utilize full color (the highest possible color depth) to get around a bug in Apple's VNC Server.

This kind of screen sharing isn't an ideal long term management solution, but it allows the kind of emergency troubleshooting that can often save the day. The next day, you can look into buying a MacBook Pro.

Recommended Reading: If you aren't currently using VNC on Windows, you can check out RealVNC, UltraVNC, and TightVNC, all popular and free VNC clients. For those who can't decide, Wikipedia offers a fantastic feature comparison of remote desktop software which includes these options, Apple Remote Desktop, and others.