How to turn on the PC remotely to work remotely

Let’s imagine having a work PC or a corporate server inside our office or our workplace but not being able to reach it physically, thus preventing us from working even when we are at home (for emergency or quarantine). In these cases we can act by cunning by bypassing the problem that forced us to stay at home, equipping our work computer to switch on remotely and provide home access to all programs and features.
This guide is more technical, not based on remote collaboration but on how to organize your work remotely using tools for turn on the PC remotely (via Wake-ON-Internet) and what programs you can use to show the desktop of the server or the company PC and remote control mouse and keyboard, without license fees or advertising windows.READ ALSO: Smart working station to work from home to the most comfortable PC

Guide to organize work remotely

In order to be able to work remotely while sitting comfortably from home, we must first turn on the PC or the company server (if it is turned off and does not always remain on): in fact we have to replace our “finger” that presses the button d power, so you can work remotely using some remote desktop programs. The programs that we have covered in the guide can be used without limits even in the workplace, so as not to display warning messages or requests for payment of the license (as often happens on TeamViewer, the large one excluded from this list).

How to configure your PC for remote ignition (Wake-On-Internet)

Turning on or waking up your PC remotely (also explained in another article) is not difficult, but we will have to act on it physically before we can turn it on remotely. First of all we connect the company computer to the modem directly via Ethernet cable (no Wi-Fi), let’s go to the BIOS / UEFI settings, open the advanced settings menu and make sure to activate the item Wake On LAN, WOL, PME Event Wake Up or similar.

After enabling the motherboard to Wake-ON-LAN, start the computer with Windows 10, go to the Start menu at the bottom left, look for Control panel and we open the path Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center, press on the item Change card settings, right click on the active Ethernet connection, click on Property, then on Configure and, in the window that will open, let’s go to the Advanced menu and activate the item Wake on magic packet.

Once this parameter is configured, let’s go to the tab I save energy and activate the voices Allow the device to wake up the computer is Only allow Magic Packet to wake up the computer.

Now we need to recover both the IP of the company PC and the Mac address of the connected network card: the simplest method requires to open the command prompt (from the Start menu), type

ipconfig / all

and retrieve information about Tax address is IPv4 address for the Ethernet card (watch out for names).
Let’s finalize the settings by assigning the fixed IP address to the company PC (for example 192.168.1.100), opening the modem settings panel and configuring the following ports to the company PC:

• Port 9 TCP -> to IPv4 address of the company PC
• Port 9 UDP -> to IPv4 address of the company PC

One time open the router ports let’s go back to the PC, open a command prompt with administrator permissions (just press the right button on the app, after looking for it in the Start menu) and set the rules of Windows Firewall, launching the following commands one at a time:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name = “Wake-on-LAN” dir = in action = allow profile = any localport = 9 protocol = TCP edge = yes

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name = “Wake-on-LAN” dir = in action = allow profile = any localport = 9 protocol = UDP edge = yes

Now we are ready to turn on the PC remotely via WOL; be sure to mark the Mac address of the network card, the assigned port and theIP address of the connection (Public IP), which we will have to use to wake up the computer; the corporate connection IP can be retrieved from the My IP site. Does our company not have a static public IP? In this case it is better to configure a DDNS service directly on the router, as seen in the guide How to get a static ADSL IP address with No-IP.

If we have doubts about the opening of the port for Wake-On-LAN, we check from the company PC the opening of the above from the Open Check Tool website.

How to turn on the PC remotely

Once the computer or the company server is turned off, let’s go outside the office or reach home and get ready to try the WOL, so that we can turn on the PC even with the office closed.

If we want to turn on the PC remotely from our smartphone, download the Wake On Lan app (Android) or the Mocha WOL app (iPhone / iPad), enter the public IP address of the corporate network, the Mac address of the network and the chosen port number (9).

If, on the other hand, we want to awaken the company device from the home PC, we invite you to use the free WakeOnLAN program, re-enter the network IP, the Mac address and the port to configure the awakening.

If instead we wanted to wake the computer directly from the browser, we can use an online service such as w3dt.net.

Again, just enter the public IP of the company network, the port number and the Mac address of the network card, then press the button Send.

Programs for remote control

Now that the PC can be woken up even without being physically present near it (hoping that no Windows errors or freezes come out during our absence!), We will show you what programs we can use to show the remote desktop and to control the cursor and the remote keyboard, so you can work right away.

One of the best services that we can use for remote control is Google Remote Desktop, available as an app for Chrome but also functioning from the dedicated site.

The app must be started first on the company computer, so that you can set up the remote resident access (complete with an access password) and install the additional program necessary for operation, so simply associate our Google account to make the PC available for remote control.
Once the corporate PC is configured, let’s go to the home computer, start Google Remote Desktop and press on the name of the corporate computer, enter the password and start working on it inside a window.

A good alternative to the Google service is the Iperius Remote Desktop app, available for free.

This too must be installed first on the company PC, so as to obtain the unique recognition ID, choose the access password and finally press on Allow connections. For automatic access, we press the gear symbol and create a resident account, so that we always have the ID and password chosen.
With the program ready on the company PC, let’s go now to the home computer, install Iperius Remote, enter the ID in the field ID to connect to and finally press on Connect.

Another very famous program with which to control the programs of the company computer remotely is Ultra VNC, available for free and with an open source license.

Also this program is composed of two elements: the VNC server (to be installed on the company PC) and the VNC Viewer, to be installed on the home computer.
To use it, all we have to do is start the server on the machine to be controlled remotely (making sure it is set to auto-start and that the necessary ports are unlocked by the firewall and forwarded to the router), then go to the home computer, start the VNC Viewer and enter the public IP of the line, so that you can start working remotely without being physically present in the office.

Conclusions

Computers can come to our aid in case of difficulty or when offices are closed, allowing us to reorganize work and enter into smart working mode, without giving up the contacts, programs and documents present on our company PC.

To synchronize the most important documents in the office, you can get help from a cloud service such as Google Drive, which we talked about in Guide to using Google Drive / Docs as an expert.
If, on the other hand, you are looking for other tools to work remotely with your office colleagues, we recommend you read our guide Smart working programs for working from home and the Apps and tools for group work, chat, communication and project sharing.
To maximize security when we connect to the company server or PC where all secret documents are present we must use a premium VPN, such as those recommended in our article Faster, reliable and limitless premium VPNs.