Over the last few weeks, we have been working hard to get all our clients, customers and associates set up so that they can all work from home or a remote location.
Below is some initial feedback from my team on some of the more common issues we’re facing in day to day IT support.
If this doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, or you have a problem not listed, don’t worry – send us a message and we’ll try to help.
When it comes to remote working there are basically two different methods, both of which have their own unique issues:
- Remote Desktop access
- Cloud computing using cloud storage.
1. Remote Desktop
Remote desktop access (or sometimes called RDP) is where you are able to remote to and takeover the desktop in your office from another PC or laptop. This has the advantage that you can use any local software that has been installed on the PC in the office and make use of shared files which are only available on your Office network. However, like all these things it does have its own difficulties and issues:
Internet Speed
As you are effectively sending the entire image of your Office Desktop screen back to your remote PC this can use a lot of internet bandwidth and may not be suitable if the connection at either end is poor.
Lag
Even on a good Internet connection there will be some degreed of “lag” and be prepared for some of these issues
- Delay between you moving the mouse pointer at one end and it actually moving the pointer on the screen in the office. If you get this, try to avoid “dragging” items with the mouse as you can easily drop them into the wrong place and lose them. Best instead to use cut (Ctrl C) and paste (Ctrl V).
- Screen freeze. You may from time to time notice the screen stop refreshing and the mouse stop moving. This isn’t unusual and should recover itself after a few seconds.
- If issues persist, check that your machine is close enough to your wireless router (if on Wifi), or consider connecting with a network cable directly to your router if possible.
Printing
Please remember that if you press print on the Office PC it will probably print out in your office!
- If you have a printer at home, setting it up to print remotely can be a little complex – instead, you may be better to email what you are trying to print to an email account that you have access to on your home machine.
- If the application you are printing from isn’t available on your home PC, try setting up a ‘PDF printer’ on your office machine – then print to that. This will create a PDF document that you can then open and print from home.
- If you do want to try and set up remote printing, typically it can be but the printer driver must be installed on both the remote and local computer and this does not always work all of the time.
Multiple desktop confusion
It can be very confusing if you forget that the desktop you are viewing is not the local desktop but a projection of the one from the office – we have had many service calls because of this.
- To make it easier to know which machine you are on, you can always show the remote desktop in a window rather than full screen – that way it’s a bit easier to tell where you are actually working.
- It’s not always obvious how to disconnect from the remote machine when working in full screen. If you move your mouse to the top middle of the screen, a blue bar should appear, you can then click the X to disconnect.
- If you have remoted again into a second machine in the office (for instance you need to login to the server for some reason), you will find that the blue bars overlay each other – the easiest way to resolve this is to drag the top blue bar to the left and you’ll then find the remote desktop bar for the other PC is beneath it – you can then press the x to disconnect from that too
- People want to join or start a Zoom meeting but don’t realise it has to run on their local computer or laptop (not the one in the office) as it will not have access to your webcam or microphone. You need to first minimize or disconnect out of the remote computer and start the zoom meeting on the local PC first.
- When asking us for help, you’ll need to give us access to your own local computer in most cases – so, when requesting remote assistance, please make sure that you have first minimized or disconnected the remote computer before following our instructions to connect to us.
Cannot connect
We have had many calls from people saying the remote access worked yesterday but not today. Some possible causes for this:
- A temporary local or remote internet connection issue where users have been able to connect again after waiting a while. For example the remote computer may have done an update which has caused the machine to reboot or temporarily shut down some services. Or your local broadband connection has temporarily gone offline or your machine is out of range of your Wifi.
- Remote computers being turned off/shutting down/sleeping/hibernating – it’s important that computers in the office are left on, but in some cases they are turning themselves off due to the default power mode for most Windows PC’s. If this happens, the remote computer needs to be turned back on, logged in, then sleep and hibernate settings disabled.
2. Cloud computing using cloud storage
This is where all your documents are stored in cloud storage systems like Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc and you can then make use of cloud based apps like Google Docs and Microsoft Office Online to access them, rather than have to have programs installed on your home machine.
This has the advantage that all the information you require is instantly available wherever you are, wherever there is an Internet connection – however again it does have its issues and challenges which require some new ways of working.
- You should always make sure that ALL information is stored on your chosen clouded storage medium and never on your local Desktop or local PC in the Office. This can take a little while to set up and sync, particularly if you have a lot of files, but it is worth the effort.
- Two or more people can work on a document stored in the cloud and see what each other is typing
- Mobile apps for phones and tablets will allow you to edit and view documents also, not just on your PC
Need any help?
I hope this article on IT problems working from home is of use. If you’d like to discuss any of the points raised, we’d love to hear from you – leave us a comment below.
Or if you need anything specific, we’d be happy to help with some free advice. Give us a call on 01992 466877 or send us a message
