Port Forwarding allows you to access computers behind a router, for various services. To put it another way, Port Forwarding offers you access to computers on your home network accessible from anywhere.

Eg, You may want to setup one of your home computers as a web server. If you have not set up port forwarding, typing in your home IP address into a browser will bring up the router settings. You will need to setup your router to send webpage requests to the computer that will be hosting the site. This is known as port forwarding and it is a supported feature for most routers. Without port forwarding you can’t move beyond the router, restricting you access to all of the computers on the network. 

I have found over the years, my needs for port forwarding have been limited to only a few simple tasks. I set up a web server and an ftp server on one machine. I also needed to have access to a remote desktop connection from another machine. This was easy to setup and allowed me to take my home computers with me on the road.

Once you have access to remote desktop on one machine, you have freedom to access shared network drives from within your home network. There is nothing that you are unable to access. It is as if you were at home, on your home computer.

This article will show you how to configure your router so that you can access computers on your home network, from any computer that is outside of your network. This article is designed for newcomers to Port Forwarding, meaning that there is lots of technical stuff left out.

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The last Terminal Services/Remote Desktop client for Windows Mobile devices was released by Microsoft many years ago. The only other options were VNC alternatives. Many hours of searching led me nowhere worthwhile until I came across this. I got all excited!

Remote Desktop allows you to operate one computer from another, eg. allowing you to control your home computer from your work computer over a network connection. This is an easy way to have access to your files, or to receive support from an IT department.

Microsoft released a new version of their RDP software with the release of crossbow. While vendors were offered the opportunity to install this on new devices, many did not take up the offer and left the devices with a little extra free space. It was not released as a download from Microsoft, though I believe they are talking about making that happen at some stage.

Luckily there are some clever people out there who managed to play around with the program from a WM6 device and port it across to a stand alone executable. It is capable of working on WM5 and for those who didn’t get it with their phone, on WM6.

The new version is great stuff. You are able to view your remote desktop in full screen, in bright 16 bit graphics and you can transfer the sounds from the desktop you are using to your device, just as you can do on desktop versions.

The screenshot on the right shows an XP desktop being accessed by the RDP client on a WM5 device. I thought I would push the 801.11b to see what it could handle, playing a small movie with sound through it. It worked well, but it was on a local network. As you can see from the screenshot, the media player window has gone to an appropriate size.

It works exactly how you would expect it should. Download it for free from the pdaphonehome forums, where you can also read a bit more on it.

DynDNS is a great service which lets you connect to your home computer or network, without having to know the IP address. You are able to use a word domain name instead, such as name.dyndns.org.

Once you sign up, which takes less than 10 minutes, you can setup the service to a domain name you like, and which you can remember. This domain name will then be associated with your home IP address.

When you are out and about, you can type this address into any number of Internet programs, depending on what you have setup on your network. Eg. If you want to use remote desktop on your home PC, you would type in the domain name into your remote desktop client. DynDNS will forward you through.

What makes DynDNS particularly useful, is that if your home IP changes, either a desktop update client or your router will tell the DynDNS servers update your IP on their records. Many routers have the option to enter in some dynamic DNS settings. You will never have to remember your home IP address again.

If you are connecting to through a router, you will need to setup port forwarding, so that your router will know which computer it should send you to for any of the services you want to use. Check this link for an extended list of ports.

DynDNS opens up a whole bunch of of doors for you. You can setup your home computer as a web or FTP server and connect to them easily. I love this service.

Create your account for free at dyndns.com. They have been around for a long time, but they can never be over promoted.