Need help accessing a computer remotely

So basically what I'm trying to do is access files at another location from home. The computer is behind a standard Router/Firewall from SMC provided by Comcast. It's my own office so there is no special security or access rights. I have XP Pro SP3 running on all computers. I tried setting up an FTP before and opened up all the ports on the router and still couldn't get it to work. I was also confused about the Static vs Dynamic IP addresses. Comcast told me I had to have a static IP for it to work, but others said I can use a dynamic IP but I just have to manually change the settings everytime the IP changes, but as far as I can tell it has stayed the same for a while. Any links or suggestions on how to accomplish what I'm trying to do would be greatly appreciated.

 

You don’t need a static IP, but when using a dynamic IP there is no way of knowing the remote IP if it changes suddenly. But you can solve this problem by subscribing to a Dynamic DNS service (i.e DynDNS, No-IP, etc..). This way you can use a static name like yourname.dyndns.org instead of an IP.

If you set up the FTP server and the router port mappings correctly, you should be able to access your server remotely. Start by assigning static IPs to the computers inside your LAN (this is not the same static IP mentioned above; this is for your internal network). Then setup port forwarding in your router based on those IPs. Also make sure that no software firewall is blocking your FTP server.

When setting up the FTP server, do it one step at a time. First start by accessing the FTP server from a different computer inside your office LAN. If you can access it then the FTP server is working fine, then concentrate on exposing it to the outside world.

 

What FTP server did you try set up?

An easier alternative is to setup a VPN/tunnel between the two computers and just transfer files like a normal network.

 

exactly. you probably want to just use hamachi. its free and easy.

 

In that case you can even use XP’s built in RemoteDesktop with driver mapping; where all the remote hard disk partitions will be mapped to your local computer, afterwards you can access them as they were on your PC.

 

If you have $$ to spend, you can buy a domain with FTP server. Being able to access it anywhere would be an advantage, and data is always backed up by the FTP provider. Downsides is the up/download times if you have slow internet.

I keep alot of my stuff on my FTP server.

10gb of filespace, 300gb downloads. I pay like $15/year (domain, email and website included). You can choose between linux/window server.