I work for a nonprofit organization.
As with most nonprofit groups, our
organization attempts to do as much
as possible with limited funds. We
have two remote offices that access a
server in the main office. This server
runs Windows 2000 Server. I chose
not to set up the server as a Web
server because of all the issues with
Microsoft IIS; I installed a VPN. However, most of the remote employees
didn't use the VPN because it was too
slow. So, the remote users had to use
Win2K Server Terminal Services or
Windows Remote Desktop to connect
to the server.
Terminal Services met most of our needs, except for the exchange of files.
The first remedy for this problem was to have the remote users connect to the
server, open up a Web-based mail program, and send themselves an email in which
they attached the file that they needed on their computer. They followed the
steps in reverse to upload a file from their computer to the server. It worked,
but it was a very convoluted method of exchanging files. Nonetheless, we lived
with it for quite some time, until a solution evolved from another problem.
In an effort to make communications between the offices more flexible, we began
to use Skype for IM. (Skype is a free program that you can download from http://www.skype.com.)
One day, a remote user who was having problems with retrieving a file from the
server used IM to ask me if I could email the file to him. Because we were already
in a Skype chat, I just used Skype to send him the file. I was in the main office
where the server was located, so I had no problems connecting to the server
from my computer and sending him the file through Skype.
Afterward, it occurred to me that if Skype was on the server, it could be used
for file transfers. So, I installed Skype on the server and set up an account
with a generic name and password. I decided not to have Skype run automatically
for two reasons. First, it felt more secure to not have Skype running all the
time. Second, resources wouldn't be expended when Skype wasn't being used. I
then had the remote users add the server's Skype account to their Skype contact
list.
Now when remote users need to retrieve a file from the server, they follow
these steps:
- Begin a Terminal Services session and connect to the server.
- Start Skype on the server.
- Start a session with themselves.
- Send themselves a file.
- Shut down Skype.
- Log off the server.
Even when the Terminal Services
session is in full-screen mode, the
dialog box for accepting the file on
the remote computer pops up in front
of the Terminal Services desktop.
Remote users don't have to toggle
back and forth between the server's
desktop and their own desktop.
However, some toggling is required when remote users want to send a file to
the server. In this case, the remote users follow these steps:
- Begin a Terminal Services session and connect to the server.
- Start Skype on the server.
- Return to their own desktop by minimizing the Terminal Services session
screen.
- Send the file.
- Restore the Terminal Services session screen.
- Shut down Skype.
- Log off the server.
Using Skype for transferring files between remote users and the server is a
more efficient method than what we were using before. It's faster and it's a
free solution that was already available and familiar to remote users. Note
that this solution is for the Win2K platform only. The RDP clients in later
versions of Windows allow mapping of local drives when using Remote Desktop.
—Stephen
Olson, information service director, Sojourn Services
End of Article
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