A tool owned by Symantec that is used for gaining desktop access to remote PCs running a Windows operating system.


pcAnywhere is useful in several capacities:

  • Helpdesk support of users' PCs
  • Remote support and administration of NT servers
  • File Transfer between the remote and host machines
  • Remote printing capabilities


  • Also important to note is that, with a slight registry modification, pcAnywhere can be socksified to remotely administer boxes that are behind a firewall.

    There are also a few drawbacks to using pcAnywhere, some of them quite severe:

  • Occasional need to stop & start the pcAnywhere Host Service on the remote box
  • Performance lag depending on the method used to connect to the remote machine
  • Rare unexplained reboots of remote machine during a pcAnywhere session



  • Note: With Windows 2000, the need for pcAnywhere is virtually obselete due to built-in Terminal Service capabilities (the local user needs only Terminal Server Client to connect to the desktop of the remote PC.

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