Last Updated on January 29, 2018 by Christopher G Mendla
One of the things I really miss after converting to Verizon Fios was my fixed IP. I had been using PCHelpware to support clients remotely. The ability to fix things without having to travel all over the place is a real Godsend.
With Verizon, I no longer have my coveted Static IP address. I’ve started to check a couple of times on the cost to upgrade from dynamic to static but just never got around to it.
I decided today to get my laptop and desktop working as a PCHelpware viewer. I had previously purchased the extended service from NO-IP.com for a whopping eight bucks a year or so.
Here are a couple of notes on what it took to get things working
- Set up an account with a service such as NO-IP
- Choose 2 domain names such as yourname.no-ip.biz
- Set up the PCHelpware server with the information to connect. We used ourname.no-ip.biz and ourname.no-ip.net and set the PCHelpware server up for ports 5500 or 5525. That will provide 4 options for your clients. (Sometimes port 5500 won’t work right as in some editions of Norton’s Corporate AV)
- Copy the PCHelpware viewer to your machines. We did a couple of presets. The setup is pretty simple, either port 5500 ot 5525.
- make sure that you allow PCHelpware throught your firewall. With Norton 2008, we had to go into programs and allow pchelpware viewe and also set up a port rule to allow tcp/udp on 5500/5525 for ourname.no-ip.biz and ourname.no-ip.net. Keep in mind that even though port rules said IP, you could enter the domain names
- Run the No-IP Dynamic Update Client on the machine (DUC). MAKE SURE that the two hostnames you selected have checkmarks next to them. (or at least the hostname that you will be having your client use)
- Start the PCHelpware Viewer. Be sure to select START after you select the ports.
- Tell your clients which port/domain to select. In some cases, they may have to tell their firewall to allow the communications.
There you have it, that should work but it does take some fiddling around. We use an aircard with the laptop a lot which was handy for testing the connections (we had our local net and the laptop was outside our network).
Hope this helps someone