I need some advice, folks. At my work, there is a data analyst who wants two computers to work with since she has so much data to crunch. The thing is that currently she only has one main computer she uses. While she is crunching data, she cannot work with other programs since it hogs down the computer so she wants a second to work with.

I have an extra computer that I am setting up for her and they must be connected together so that she can crunch data on one computer while crunching data on another computer while the data can be shared back and forth. Getting an extra monitor/keyboard/mouse is not an option as there is nowhere to set up the second computer on her desk. So this is what I propose (and please let me know if you guys have a better idea):

Install TightVNC or pcAnywhere on the machines and have her work on one computer while remotely controlling the other computer through the office network. So basically she can fire up TightVNC or pcAnywhere and tell the other computer to crunch data while she crunches more data on her computer.

Does this sound like a feasible option? Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.
P.S. - I am unfamiliar with the capabilities of TightVNC. Will I be able to do this with TightVNC? If not, I will go ahead and have my company purchase pcAnywhere.

A kvm switch may be better: basically allows you to use 1 keybd/mouse/video on 2 boxes.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/K/KVM_switch.html
No need to worry if the working box is slowing down the connection to the other box.

Whoa! I have never heard of such a thing! This does sound like one possible solution! I'll look more into it.

Thanks!

We user RDC here, it's built into Windows so you don't have to buy anything. Fast too. For older machines that don't support RDC we use realvnc (www.realvnc.com). We save the KVM's for the server room as they tend to degrade the image quality a little bit (and that gets annoying when staring at the screen for hours on end).

Right now I'm sitting at a Mac OS X box, typing this into IE running on a Windows 2003 terminal server!

Shameless plug here... We've got one on eBay right now. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=5749276124

Definately a kvm, since all the software choices are going to consume cycles. You can get a cheap two way kvm for twenty bucks at newegg. Working on one right now.

Okay folks, I am ALMOST there. I have decided to try TightVNC, and it works nicely, however, the data analyst prefer the Windows XP Remote Desktop Client. She prefers the little switch box on top of the screen all the time. The ONLY problem is that once she logs off, it also logs off on the other computer. This means that she has to manually log back on the other computer to be able to do the Remote Desktop Client application again. I tried putting no password in the other computer, but when I try to connect, it says account is not enabled, or something like that.

My question: How do I enable the data analyst to connect/disconnect without having the other computer continuously log off? If I can disable the other computer from logging off, then we have a winner!

Here's a "visual"

here's an easy visualization:

Computer A connects to Computer B

Computer A disconnects Computer B

Computer B is logged off

Computer A tries to connect to Computer B

Computer B refuses since it is logged off

I log back in Computer B by hand

Computer A can now log back in Computer B

Rinse and repeat