Common Questions

Q: What makes SpyAnywhere unique from other remote administration solutions?
A: SpyAnywhere is unique because it's client side is totally web-based! This means you do not have to worry about having a client program installed on your PC so you can communicate with the remote machine. You can access your remote PC from any computer with an Internet connection and a web-browser once SpyAnywhere is installed on it!

Q: How Do I setup and configure SpyAnywhere?
A: You only need to be at the remote PC ONCE to setup SpyAnywhere! SpyAnywhere is easily setup - just configure your password, your access restrictions, and specify whether you want SpyAnywhere to load on Windows startup in stealth mode.

Q: How Do I access the remote PC?
A: Simple! Just open your web-browser (such as Internet Explorer or Netscape) and type in "http://ip_address" - where ip_address is the IP address of the remote PC you wish to connect to! From here you will be presented with a login page where you enter your SpyAnywhere password to access the control panel!

Q: How Do I know the IP address of the remote PC?
A: SpyAnywhere can be configured to EMAIL YOU the IP address of the remote PC every time it changes. This allows you to ALWAYS have the IP address for the target machine. This is especially useful if you are monitoring a dialup-connected PC with SpyAnywhere!

Q: How secure is SpyAnywhere?
A: SpyAnywhere is secure as you want it to be. SpyAnywhere can be configured to filter IP addresses so only certain IP addresses are allowed access to SpyAnywhere. You can choose to limit access as well to SpyAnywhere by disabling features that you do not want to be used remotely - such as remote file system browsing.

Q: What is the minimum configuration that is able to run SpyAnywhere?
A: All you need for SpyAnywhere is a Windows machine. It does not require a web server, since SpyAnywhere is its own HTTP server. The only thing you need to have running on the machine is TCP/IP.

Q: How do I get the IP address of the PC if it is on dialup?
A: You can configure SpyAnywhere to deliver the IP address via email every time the IP changes - just use the IP Delivery Via Email feature!

Q: Who will have access to SpyAnywhere?
A: The only user that will have access to the SpyAnywhere software, locally or remotely, is you - or whoever you give the access password and ip address to. SpyAnywhere cannot be terminated locally without your administrator password. You can also configure SpyAnywhere so only certain IP addresses can access the server.

Q: How do I access my remote PC if it is behind a firewall/router?
A: The easiest way to access a computer that is protected by a firewall is to map one of the firewall's ports to SpyAnywhere's port.

For example:
FIREWALL/ROUTER EXTERNAL IP address: 65.65.65.65
SpyAnywhere machine: IP address: 192.168.1.100

In this case, you should pick a port on the firewall (say, 2000) and use port forwarding to route all traffic on port 2000 to 192.168.1.100, assuming SpyAnywhere is set to use port 2000.
Having done the above, you will be able to access the computer with the URL http://65.65.65.65:2000