TeamViewer is one of the most popular remote help tool which establishes connections to any PC all around the world within just a few seconds. You can remote control your partner’s PC as if you were sitting right in front of it. There’s CrossLoop, AMMYY Admin, ShowMyPC but TeamViewer is my favorite software that I use to remotely help my friend and family’s computer problem even they are hundreds of miles away from me. All they need to do is to download the customer module, run it, give me the ID and random generated password and within a few seconds, I can see the other computer’s desktop, control their mouse and keyboard.
4 days ago TeamViewer released a major update on their software and added many, many new features, from a fully featured web browser frontend to its brand new portable account system including presence state display. The web browser frontend conveniently lets you connect to another computer from any computer that has internet connection and a web browser that supports flash. Using Flash is better than ActiveX because on some computers with high security settings, installing ActiveX can be a problem. As for Flash, it is considered safer than ActiveX and is widely installed. To be able to use the web connector, you’d need to sign up for a free TeamViewer account. Once you have done that, you got yourself a TeamViewer username which would be useful in Partner List feature.
In addition to remotely controlling computers TeamViewer 4 now also allows to participate in presentations with a browser and nothing but Adobe Flash required. Multiple participants are now allowed in a presentation session (up to 2 for the Free version, up to 5 with the Business and up to 10 with the Premium license)
TeamViewer 4 offers a brand new account system that allows you to store trusted partners and remote computers in your partner list in order to connect to those partners with a single click of the mouse. The partner list will also include presence state display, so you will be able to see which of your partners or remote computers is currently online. The accounts are stored on the TeamViewer servers and are by that portable – you will be able to log on to your account from any TeamViewer and even from the new web connector. To access the partner list area, just click the Partner list icon at the bottom right. If you’ve already signed up for a TeamViewer account, you can enter the username and password, or else just click the Sign Up link to register a new account.
When your partner is online, you can right click on the account name which allows you to easily start remote control, presentation, file transfer, and VPN. The “quick access” feature allows you to skip entering password but the partner would have to grant access to do a remote support session. As for Presentation “quick access”, there’s no need to grant access or password. Currently there’s no support for online or sound notification when the user comes online. Hopefully this feature will be added in future versions.
The additions to TeamViewer 4 don’t stop here. There are other major new features in the new version. We can now get a system overview of the technical configuration of the remote system via Extras > Remote System Info… It is able to extract basic information such as computer name, username, domain, boot time, processor, memory, operating system, drives and network card. This feature will save our time in asking the user what is the specification of their computer which they probably don’t even know.
Another new feature is remotely changing screen resolution. The resolution of the remote screen can now be remotely adjusted during a session. Simply click View > Screen Resolution.
TeamViewer 4 users will be able to connect to TeamViewer 3 without limitations. However the other way, connecting from TeamViewer 3 to TeamViewer 4, is not possible due to technical and licensing restrictions. Although version 4 can connect to version 3, I’d suggest both parties to upgrade to the latest version 4 because it is much faster than TeamViewer 3.
One thing I don’t like about TeamViewer is the constant annoying nag popup that says “Commercial use suspected. This software seems to be used in commercial environments. Please note that the free version may only used for personal use! Thank you for playing fair.” It’s way too sensitive and I believe a lot of people are getting it.