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Is there any VNC-style software for Windows that on LAN feel almost like working with a local computer? Preferably free (and not RDP).
The various VNC branches I've tried, admittedly not recently, were always a bit sluggish even with the video mirror driver.

Radmin is the only thing that felt nice, but there are some problems with keyboard handling, clipboard integration is awkward, and it's not free.

Why the "no RDP" requirement? IME that has always seemed like the smoothest solution for Windows.

Even over gigabit LAN any VNC solution I've tried is just nowhere near as efficient as RDP. Windows 10's RDP has the latest GPU-accelerated video encoding and lowest latency of any remote solution I've tried. Puts every other platform (including OSX) to shame.
Aside from that, TeamViewer is an option.

I want it to work also on XP, and I've grown tired of most Microsoft tools. I'm expecting uncontrollable communication from svchost.exe, messy ports, lack of configuration GUI, cryptic registry settings, difficult to troubleshoot problems, compatiblity problems across OS versions, need for Pro versions of Windows, features being removed in later versions, etc.

Radmin is really my reference point, at least in smoothness, lightness, and BS-lessness. It works perfectly fine with <100Mb. Probably will work just as well with <10Mbit. There's no need for GPU acceleration. In the past it worked smoothly on Pentium 3s, or less.

Anyway, so far Anydesk looks the most promising (<2MB download bodes well), but I haven't tried it yet.

meerkt wrote:

I want it to work also on XP

Connecting to XP computers or using XP to connect (only the former use case would need to figure out Home vs Pro)? RDP is still sort of your best bet. The big secret is that you can RDP at a much lower (or higher) resolution than the native resolution. To me that's the biggest performance advantage. Less pixels really do make a difference.

You still have XP computers?

You won't find a smoother solution than RDP. You can choose exactly which users can (or cannot) access the system, you can specify a non-default port, you can port-forward it thru NAT, you can choose resolution and number of monitors.....all while being by far the most bandwidth efficient. Well I've said my piece. Good luck.

Yeah, I still have also XP. I'm avoiding RDP because of all of the above, not necessarily because also XP is involved.

And I take it back on AnyDesk. It's a call home sort of program, and the direct connect option doesn't work. Maybe it can work, after calling back home and maybe downloading more files. Not sure. I don't want it to access the internet so I haven't explored further. It also comes with an annoying Win10 skin instead of a native UI (never got why people feel they need to forcibly copycat Microsoft's design du jour).

Edit: Found an offline MSI installer. Post-install (without asking you where), I finally got it to open a listening port. But, connection fails. The log complains about SSL/TLS handshake failure. MSI installer, default install dir, no GUI indication, log files, unclear errors... feels like a Microsoft tool.

You may wanna give NoMachine a try. I find it pretty responsive. Maybe not like RDP but it's OK. It also supports XP. And many other platforms, so I can remote into my Macs from Windows which is sweet!

I did see NoMachine mentioned in various places but it didn't look promising. Maybe I'll have a look.
I was mainly hoping to find some little-known tool of the single-coder small and nimble sort of software.

just brew it! wrote:

Why the "no RDP" requirement? IME that has always seemed like the smoothest solution for Windows.

RDP has huge problems, as anyone that's tried to use it for support could tell you.

I realize that "you can only sign in as one user, and guess what, the other one gets logged out without warning" is a feature, not a bug, but that kills a large number of use cases.

I need to see the already existing desktop, not my new one.

Vhalidictes wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Why the "no RDP" requirement? IME that has always seemed like the smoothest solution for Windows.

RDP has huge problems, as anyone that's tried to use it for support could tell you.

I realize that "you can only sign in as one user, and guess what, the other one gets logged out without warning" is a feature, not a bug, but that kills a large number of use cases.

I need to see the already existing desktop, not my new one.

Back in the days of XP when I was letting my niece and nephews play games on one of the machines on my network and I logged in from VNC and started messing with their mouse just enough to make them miss; good times. Took them a while to get suspicious.

You can use UltraVNC http://www.uvnc.com/
RDP works well when the host machine is a windows box. RDP has worked fine under windows 8.1. There are RDP clients for Linux that run well too.

Like you said you wanted somthing else that's not RDP, check out UltraVNC.

mcarson09 wrote:

You can use UltraVNC http://www.uvnc.com/
RDP works well when the host machine is a windows box. RDP has worked fine under windows 8.1. There are RDP clients for Linux that run well too.

Like you said you wanted somthing else that's not RDP, check out UltraVNC.

He already said in the original post that he's tried various VNC versions, and they're too "sluggish". I don't recall UltraVNC being particularly more performant than the original version the last time I tried it, but it has been a few years.

just brew it! wrote:

mcarson09 wrote:

You can use UltraVNC http://www.uvnc.com/
RDP works well when the host machine is a windows box. RDP has worked fine under windows 8.1. There are RDP clients for Linux that run well too.

Like you said you wanted somthing else that's not RDP, check out UltraVNC.

He already said in the original post that he's tried various VNC versions, and they're too "sluggish". I don't recall UltraVNC being particularly more performant than the original version the last time I tried it, but it has been a few years.

RAdmin is quicker than VNC, but it has its own quirks. Worth a try I suppose.

Teamviewer uses RDP protocol on windows and does not log out the other user.