Remotely access a launchbox cabinet on the network

[Jimbob]

I have a cabinet setup in my family room in the basement running Bigbox and I'd like to be able to access it to do setup and maintenance from a computer upstairs. Right now, because this is a CRT-based cabinet I have to setup a second display (regular non-crt monitor) so that I can view windows with correct resolution and enter windows settings to activate it then open launchbox and sit sideways in front of my cabinet on a stool editing my setup. It would be great to be able to do this from the comfort of my main desktop upstairs. I'm sure there's a way to set this up, I'm just not savvy enough to know. Can anyone help me out with some directions or point me to a tutorial?

TIA

Brian

[Jimbob]

I may try teamviewer...

[skizzosjt]

def not the best user to provide super technical advice here, but I have multiple systems on my local network and can remote connect between them. I've got it all working, just might not really know all the details. I can say, teamviewer is def not required. You can do this with native Windows apps

for me, I have only local user accounts on my Windows machines and use blank passwords and auto login. so when I would attempt to remote connect to another system it would not work due to it would expect a username and password. I had to edit a setting for it to allow a user to connect without a password....I'll assume you're not like me and have passwords set, but can go into details if needed

if you have your systems already discovering each other it's as easy as turning on remote desktop connection. just windows search "remote desktop settings" then you enable it.  then I usually connect to the other system by opening Windows Explorer and clicking on Network. Then right click on the specific system/device and select "Connect with Remote Desktop Connection". Enter in username and password, and you're in

 

for stuff to google you would want to research how to share files between your PCs. and how to remote connect into another PC on your local network.

I'm not even sure if you need file sharing on in order to use remote desktop...perhaps not, so take note I'm just sharing my experience to help out. if a clown like me can stumble their way through getting it setup, I sure bet you can too! to be clear though, I had file sharing up and running and then wanted to setup remote desktop afterwards

File sharing can be enabled through windows searching "sharing", should get you to "Advance sharing settings"

I'm just gonna paste a bunch of photos rather than typing out each setting. Use your best judgement on if these settings make sense for you. Mind I am in the boonies, I cannot see any neighbors from my house.  I am not concerned about someone else getting onto my WiFi connection, I dont even PW protect that due to my proximity. So this is why I have "password protected sharing" set to OFF (along with due to I use local accounts with blank passwords). Might not be a good idea for you in your use case. Do any research you need and maybe some other users will chime in with more solid advice than me

 

I have the public folder sharing OFF due to I did not want to see those folders when I connect to these other systems. if you wanted to see them then you would have that ON. to clarify, these are the users/Public folders

 

Pretty easy to enable remote desktop, toggle a button

 

You may want to give your systems a name that makes sense rather than the auto generated name they are given. I have a Z390 and B760 system so I put those chipsets in the name to easily identify them. windows search "name" to go to "view your PC name" aka about your PC. there will be a "Rename this PC" button and you can rename it should you want to

 

Here is how I connect to another PC as I described above

 

I'm not sure if this is something I manually had to check or not, but this will be needed from what I can tell. windows search "features" and you need to go to "Turn Windows Features on or off". The parameter I have highlighted/checked is SMB Direct. This is for file sharing,  I don't think it has to do anything with Remote Desktop Connection

 

I kinda recall jumping through a couple extra hoops for file sharing too (I cannot remember anymore details than what I have above though), but this is most likely because I have never done this before and was likely f-ing it up somewhere along the way. I just learned this stuff this year. But like I'm trying to say, a little perseverance and research will get you through this.

 

 

[Jimbob]

Thank you for taking the time to share that all with me, it's super helpful. I do not use passwords on my PCs either. I don't use them for anything important other than my games so I'm not worried about it. However, if I set this up and someone can get access that much easier then maybe I'll consider it. That's something I hadn't thought about until you pointed it out. This might be where teamviewer may be advantageous. I can set it up so that as long as the arcade cabinet is up and running, I can access it from my workbench without any prompting at the cabinet.

I do see some issues popping up with the fact that eventually I would like to enable BigBox as shell which will not load many windows functions. Maybe it's possible to set that up to also load teamviewer.exe every time I turn the cabinet on. If this that works maybe that could be a workaround for the inactive windows shell. Password wouldn't be a thing because only the workbench PC would be allowed to connect through teamviewer without attendance.

I'm sure there's easier ways of doing things than I can dream up, but that's part of why this is fun to figure out. But right now, it'd be a lot more fun without needing that extra monitor to hook up and if/when I build more cabinets, maintaining them will just be all that much easier and enjoyable. 

 

Thanks again

[skizzosjt]

what I do is boot up and using Task Scheduler hide the system tray along with some additional stuff like hiding this or that storefront splash window from being visible using an AHK script. I've then got a hotkey setup to launch Big Box when I hold down both triggers and double click the guide button on a Xbox controller. I don't have a cabinet but use all this stuff for a HTPC setup in the living room. I know it's not the same as using Big Box as shell, but creates a similar experience in what you see, particularly not seeing the system tray in my personal preference. alternatively you can have Big Box boot automatically or after some other event rather than be triggered by some input.

I bring that up due to it might be an option if it's the visual experience you're after but still need the Windows shell running.

 

since you don't use passwords either, here is the setting I changed to get around that.

Windows search "group policy" and go to "edit group policy". Then drill down through this path on the tree on the left hand side

Local Computer Policy > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options

Now on right hand side, find the setting "Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console logon only" and change it to disabled.

This way you can type in only a user name and leave the password field blank when Remote Connecting into your other system

[Jimbob]

ATM I have BigBox in my start prog folder. After windows loads it goes straight into Bigbox. I like this but Bigbox being shell should shorten that wait time quite a bit.

I'm using old discarded tower desktop PCs for my builds and I wouldn't call them speedy by any means.