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2. When the PING finishes, take note of the average round-trip time at the bottom of the screen. This is your current latency to that site.

Terminal Emulation

In Microsoft networking, we primarily share folders and printers. At times it would be convenient to be transported in front of another computer—to feel as if your hands were actually on its keyboard. This is called terminal emulation. Terminal emulation is old stuff; Telnet is one of the oldest TCP/IP applications, but the introduction of graphical user interfaces cost it much of its popularity. Today when techs talk about terminal emulation, they are usually referring to graphical terminal emulation programs.

Like so many other Windows applications, graphical terminal emulation originally came from third-party companies and was eventually absorbed into the Windows operating system. Although many third-party emulators are available, one of the most popular is the University of Cambridge’s VNC. VNC is free and totally cross-platform, enabling you to run and control a Windows system remotely from your Macintosh system, for example. Figure 25-45 shows VNC in action.

Figure 25-45 VNC in action

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NOTE All terminal emulation programs require separate server and client programs.

Windows 2000 Server (not Professional) was the first version of Windows to include a built-in terminal emulator called Windows Terminal Services. Terminal Services has a number of limitations: the server software runs only on Windows Server and the client software runs only on Windows—although the client works on every version of Windows and is free. Figure 25-46 shows Windows Terminal Services running on a Windows 2000 computer.

Figure 25-46 Old Terminal Services

Windows XP and Vista offer an alternative to VNC: Remote Desktop. Remote Desktop provides control over a remote server with the fully graphical interface. Your desktop becomes the server desktop (Figure 25-47). It’s quite incredible—although it’s only for Windows XP and later.

Wouldn’t it be cool if, when called about a technical support issue, you could simply see what the client sees? (I’m not talking voyeur cam here.) When the client says that something doesn’t work, it would be great if you could transfer yourself from your desk to your client’s desk to see precisely what the client sees. This would dramatically cut down on the miscommunication that can make a tech’s life so tedious. Windows Remote Assistance does just that. Based on the Shared Desktop feature that used to come with the popular MSN Messenger program, Remote Assistance enables you to give anyone control of your desktop. If a user has a problem, that user can request support directly from you. Upon receiving the support request e-mail, you can then log in to the user’s system and, with permission, take the driver’s seat. Figure 25-48 shows Remote Assistance in action.

Figure 25-47 Windows Vista Remote Desktop Connection dialog box

Figure 25-48 Remote Assistance in action

With Remote Assistance, you can do anything you would do from the actual computer. You can troubleshoot some hardware configuration or driver problem. You can install drivers, roll back drivers, download new ones, and so forth. You’re in command of the remote machine as long as the client allows you to be. The client sees everything you do, by the way, and can stop you cold if you get out of line or do something that makes the client nervous! Remote Assistance can help you teach someone how to use a particular application. You can log on to a user’s PC and fire up Outlook, for example, and then walk through the steps to configure it while the user watches. The user can then take over the machine and walk through the steps while you watch, chatting with one another the whole time. Sweet!

The new graphical terminal emulators provide everything you need to access one system from another. They are common, especially now that Microsoft provides free terminal emulators. Whatever type of emulator you use, remember that you will always need