Using Chrome Remote Desktop in Windows.
Hi, everyone.
Leo, Notenboom here for Askleo.com. In this video, what I want to do is walk you
through setting up and using Remote Desktop.
Chrome's Remote Desktop.
That's available to do both.
Just Remote Desktop access.
But the scenario that I'm going to be explicitly walking you through is
basically either asking for help or giving someone else help across the Internet.
Now, I've been through a lot of different remote access tools.
Windows has Remote Desktop installed.
I've used Team Viewer.
I've used Remote PC.
I've used a number of others.
As it turns out, this is the one I find
myself gravitating towards most often as I access things remotely myself.
So I think this is a worthwhile exercise to go through.
It's one of those tools that I think would be very helpful whether you're
on the receiving end or the giving end of some kind of remote assistance.
So let's go ahead and switch over.
What I have here are two machines.
I have a Windows Ten machine that is going
to be, in our scenario, the person needing help.
Okay?
So this is the person who is asking for help from someone else.
The other machine, which I might end up referring to as my left hand machine.
I have a right hand machine and a left hand machine in front of me.
The left hand machine is a Windows Eleven machine.
And that will be the machine of the person who is giving help,
who wants to see the other person's machine in order to help them.
So we'll switch over to Windows Ten, and the very first thing we end up having
to do, of course, is install Google's Chrome's Remote Desktop.
You can, of course, search for it
and you'll see that it's here at Remote Desktop.
Google.com. We'll go to that.
Now, there are two ways that you can use Remote Desktop.
I'm going to focus on the Share My Screen scenario.
A Share My Screen scenario is simply
a short term set up where you are making your screen, your computer available
to someone else, potentially to give you assistance remotely.
So go ahead and click on Share My Screen.
Would you like to install Remote Desktop to this device?
The answer is yes.
We want to do this because it will allow
this computer to be accessed more reliably.
Using Remote Desktop.
We're going to install the app.
And now what you'll find is that if I can
close the browser, here what we're actually running.
Take a look at the icon down here.
We have a Remote Desktop application on our machine.
In fact, if you look at the Start menu
now, you'll see that there is something called Chrome Remote Desktop.
That is the utility you would use whenever
you're initiating a connection, be it on the receiving end or the sending end.
So we now want to share this screen.
This the first time we do this will actually have us install
the Chrome Remote Desktop browser extension.
We can make the browser go away again.
We can close this.
Chrome Remote Desktop is now installed.
This is a one time thing you only need to install at once.
And it says Generate code.
Now, I'm going to hold off on that for just a second.
We'll go over to my Windows Eleven machine.
In our case, what we want to do is connect to another computer.
That means that other computer needs to generate a code.
That's what we'll do. Over here.
We will generate in our Windows Ten machine.
The person asking for help will now generate a code.
This is generated by Google and you can
see that the code will expire in five minutes.
So we need to give that code to the other person.
Typically, this would happen if you are
on the phone with the person you're trying to help.
You might say, Okay, here's the code.
In my case, the code is going to be this number 9193, etc.
What happens then?
We'll switch back over to the person giving help the Windows Eleven machine.
They then will type that code nine 1935-648-3386.
Now we can connect back to our Windows Ten machine.
Because what will happen is that we will now be asked, do you want to do this?
Are you sure that this individual,
identified by their Gmail account, can see and control your machine?
In which case, since we're doing this on purpose, we'll say share.
Now, back on the Windows Eleven machine, you can see that we have
something that looks a lot like what's happening on our Windows Ten machine.
In fact, it's in a window.
If I resize this window, you can see that we are looking at
the Windows Ten machine on our Windows Eleven machine.
So now if I do something in the window on my Windows Eleven machine,
my left hand machine, it will then happen on the Windows Ten machine.
For example, I just minimize that window.
It's now minimized in both places.
I can now drive the Windows Ten machine from this side.
I'll go ahead and fire up mail, for example.
Maybe we're diagnosing an email problem.
The bottom line here though is that we
have access to that Windows Ten machine through this window.
We still have our Windows Eleven machine.
It's here, it's fine.
It's doing whatever it is we want to do in Windows Eleven.
But in Chrome Remote Desktop we have access to this other machine.
You'll notice we did not have to play
at all with router settings or anything like that.
The reason is Google is disintermediating for us.
In other words, it's handling this scenario that says,
okay, that computer over here is trying to connect to this computer over here.
I will put them in touch with each other and that allows this to happen.
Now, you'll notice I'll go over directly
to the Windows Ten machine here down at the bottom there is this.
Your desktop is currently shared with Askleotest@gmail.com.
That's a warning.
It's information that says, you know what?
Whatever you think you're doing,
that other person at the other side can see what you're doing.
For example, if now in the Windows Ten
machine, I close the mail program, then over on the Windows Eleven machine,
the person giving help that disappeared from the window.
So it's a very, very handy way to give
someone access to what it is you're doing while you're doing it in real time.
They can see your desktop.
They can see the steps that you're taking.
They can take steps themselves.
They can indeed click on things on your
computer remotely because you've given them access.
Now, once you're done, well,
when you're done, you just hit that Stop sharing button, and all of a sudden, poof.
On our side, the Windows Ten side, the person getting the help side,
it just stops sharing you're back to where you were.
And nobody is connected.
On the Windows Eleven side, where I've been giving help to somebody,
the window that was open on the Windows Ten machine just goes away.
Gives me an opportunity to connect to another computer if I want to.
Now, throughout this exercise, I've been referring to Windows Eleven,
windows Ten only because I wanted to keep these two machines separate.
I wanted to make clear which machine was fulfilling which role.
In my case, it was the Windows Ten person asking for help and the Windows Eleven
person giving help connecting to the Windows Ten person's computer.
It doesn't have to be that way.
This works from Windows Ten to Windows Ten.
Windows Eleven to Windows Eleven, all the combinations that you might think of.
It generally works on anything
that Google Chrome is supported on, which means that if you're doing
Windows Seven and it's still running Google Chrome, you can do that.
Windows Eight with Google Chrome, you can run that Macintosh.
Running Google Chrome, you can do that.
I have done that.
That's how I connect to the Mac Pro I have in my basement.
I never walk to my basement.
I just connect to it using Remote Desktop.
So this is a very convenient, very simple,
and most important of all, I suppose, free approach to using a remote desktop.
Now, I do want to throw out one huge, huge caveat.
All of the Remote Desktop programs are subject to abuse.
By that I mean, you may get a phone call from someone saying that your computer is
causing a problem on the Internet, but I can fix it.
If I do this, I can fix it for you.
Typically, this involves granting that person remote access to your machine.
Google Chrome Remote Desktop is one way that they might suggest they do that.
Other tools can be used for this as well.
The bottom line here is that they're not interested in fixing your computer.
They're interested in installing malware or otherwise compromising your computer.
The bottom line here do not give access to anyone that you don't trust,
that you don't know, that you didn't initiate the conversation
with that someone that you know is going to help you.
If a stranger calls you up and says they
want to access your computer remotely, don't do it.
Just don't do it because they're probably trying to scam you.
If you're asking for help, be it from a friend or from a computer
company that you're familiar with, that you trust absolutely.
This is a wonderful tool for doing that kind of thing.
But again, it is a tool that is used by scammers.
The tool itself is fine.
It's a wonderful tool.
I use it all the time.
It's the way that the scammers use it that caused the problem.
Be on guard.
Never give remote access to anybody that you don't trust.
I hope this has been helpful.
It's an interesting scenario, for sure.
For updates, for comments, for related links and more, visit AskLeo.com/146518.
I'm Leo Notenboom and this is Ask Leo.com. Thanks for watching.