I was wondering if anyone has experience with this...

What I want is something like a VNC experience, but that allows the person sitting at the host machine to work uninterrupted. The host machine is Win98. I have seen virtual desktop hacks done on Win98 and thought if that can be done, maybe a terminal server-type service can also be loaded. Is anyone familiar with any software that can do this? Free would be best, but cheap shareware is OK too. TIA.

I don't know of any. VNC will do this in a *nix environment, but not in any Windows environments (95 et al & 2k et al). You can use a 'no mouse, no keyboard' setting in VNC which won't disturb the desktop in M$ but if you want to do anything other than observe the desktop, that's not too useful. I know that in W2k (XP?) that a lot of the administrative tools can be run remotely (with appropriate permissions) without disturbing the desktop. HTH.

-Zeke

You mean you want a multiuser remote login, where each user (including, possibly, the console user) has a different desktop and can all use their own desktops at the same time?

That's Windows Terminal Services or Server (depending on the version of Windows). There's also an addon product called Citrix that provides some additional features on top of that.

But both are $$$$$.

Edit: There's probably more info here.

The service/server must run on Win98. This is all because we have old software that uses a key in the parallel port on that machine. We were told the software will not run on NT. I haven't tried yet though.

There doesn't have to be a login process. The two machines will be wired through ethernet on their own physical network.

But you still have to have two people accessing the machine at one time, right?

Now that I think about it, I was at a company once that had a device that was supposed to allow multiple people to access the computer at the same time (it was supposed to create a second console, or some such). We could never get it to work, but if I can remember what it was, I'll let you know.

BTW, a key in the parallel port == ``dongle''.

I remembered. It's the PC Buddy. I don't think that they're still in business, but you might be able to find one somewhere. In fact, I might be able to find that old one we had. Maybe, as I think I know who stole it after we couldn't get it to work at the office (not me).

Edit: Seems like the PC Buddy was actually just a bundled set of the BeTwin software and an ordinary video card. BeTwin is still in existence, but they only seem to have a Win2k app now.

Greetings!

Could you get away with a logical / automatic parallel port switch?

Could you have Win98 running in emulation on another machine and access the emulation app with VNC clients? Sort of putting Win98 in a more able wrapper OS that would enable the sharing you need? It seems sort of kludgy though. Personally I might consider getting a cheap box for the person who needs that desktop and running th 98 box headless with VNC server that only accepts one connection (I think that can be done). Are you sure there's no hacks available for your old software that'd eliminate the need for the dongle?

-Zeke

Is there any way to hack Windows XP to allow multiple login? :-) Or even 1 additional simultaneous remote desktop login?

Calvin

From TechTV's web site (an older article but it sums it up pretty well):

"We ran into another issue, this time between Remote Desktop and XP's Multiple Users feature. If a user is logged into the system locally and another tries to connect remotely, one will have to log off as only one user at a time can have access to the computer. Users on both ends will be prompted with warning messages if this occurs. While it serves a few needs, it won't replace more robust offerings such as the corporate-heavy pcAnywhere 10.0 from Symantec, or the supremely easy GoToMyPC from ExpertCity, a relatively speedy, Internet-based subscription service. "

So it seems the answer is no. However, I haven't got XP and this article is a bit dated so this may have changed, but I would doubt it.

-Zeke

Could you get away with a logical / automatic parallel port switch?

Do you mean using a switch like this? If you do, I think that's a great idea! If not, thanks for the idea!

Do you think this would work? For $10 I might as well try anyway. Thanks again!

Greetings!

That was the kind of thing I was thinking of. I don't know if it will work - it really depends on exactly what they are doing to read from the parallel port. It might work. Worst case, you can always return it.

The only problem is that you become physically tied - the two machines need to be close together...

They would be close anyway, so if this works it's a great solution. I'm gonna go for it. Thanks again for the excellent idea!

Another possibility, assuming you don't actually use the printer ports to print, might just be a basic Y cable...