Screen sharing Mac and PC?

I am on a LAN and i want to know if you could share the Mac's screen with another PC. If the macbookpro is ON and opened up could i control or see its screen from another PC o the network? If yes, how?

OSX's Screen Sharing is based on the VNC protocol. So on paper, any VNC client should work. In reality, some VNC clients work better than others. And the way Apple implemented Screen Sharing in Lion "broke" some of the PC VNC clients. So try a several different VNC client on your PC to see which works best for you.
Me personally, I still use the original AT&T VNC client, which is really old, hasn't been updated in years (but still works on Windows 7,) and doesn't have many features that have been added on by other vendors. But that lack of add-ons I belive are why I seem to have very few problems with connecting from my Windows PC. YMMV, of course.

Similar Messages

Screen Sharing freezing and high CPU usage

Hello all,
I use screen sharing to remote my mac mini as a media server connected to ma HD TV to play movies, music and surf.
Since I upgrade to mavericks on my macs (Macbook Pro Retina and my Mac Mini) I have some troubles with the screen sharing feature.
No problems with the login step, the connexion is fast, all permissions are OK (I saw there were a bug with some RDP release) but sometimes, when I use fullscreen software as VLC, Firefox, etc (not the native apple full screen feature, I just clic on the + at the top of the window), my sreen sharing freeze and I can't do or move anything on the remoted mac mini. I'm unable to close (or reduce) the screen sharing app too, it's totaly busy (But I can see the movie or the website on the 2 computer, there is no deconnection)... I have to kill the process through the monitoring activity.
During the freezing time, I try to use vnc light from my Iphone and I have no problem, I can move the mouse, reduce le VLC windows... As soon I reduce the VLC windows, the screen sharing works again. I also use the logitech TouchMouse to remote the mouse, everything work fine.
Here are a screen shot of the monitoring activity of the Mac running the screen sharing app, we can see that there is a very high CPU usage when I use VLC in fullscreen on my mac mini. The first is in normal mode. The second is in freeze mode. Screen Sharing is named "Partage d'écran".
Can someone help me to fix that, everything works fine with Mountain Lion.

I have a Macbook Pro 13.5" 2.8 GHz 4 core (2 real, 2 hyperthreaded) i7 machine running with 1920X1200 display, 3 virtual screens and VMWare adding a few virtual screens (full sized). I have another Macbook Pro 15" with 2.6 GHz Haswell 8 core (4 real, 4 hyperthreaded). I see the problem using Screen Sharing on the 15 inch (Retina screen) mode simulating 1920 X 1200 pixels using Screen Sharing to the 13.5" Macbook Pro.
When I get the ScreenSharing problem, I have identified it as related to the VMWare screen on the 13.5" Macbook Pro being shown through Screen Sharing on the Retina Screen. Before you conclude it is a VMWare problem, the computations are only on the Screen Sharing client side, not on the server side running VMWare. The mouse gets unusable through Screen Sharing. If I physically move the mouse on the 13.5" Macbook, no problem. If I switch virtual screens, the Screen Sharing goes to normal processing.
I see an appearance of a compute-bound thread on the Screen Sharing client. It takes 100% CPU on one thread, the machine as a whole is 12.5% busy (the performance monitor considers all 8 threads as equal when in fact, they are not).
A few more pieces of information. The VMWare client ends up having a lot of overlapping windows with a lot of changing graphics. My mouse runs into problems especially when it is overlaying a changing plot (Perfmon running in Windows 7, or updating email client). It does turn out that VMWare has a "native" VNC server built-in and I tried to connect to the virtual screen using the Screen Sharing Client on the machine with computing problem and voila!, no problem. I end up having a Screen Sharing Client running native running screen (supposed to be VNC, but I have not verified that) sharing protocol on a virtual screen that is NOT the VMWare virtual screen and a separate session using actual VNC protocol using the VMWare VNC server. It works perfectly fine.
If I may hazard a guess, I think I know what the bug is, or at least, what is the nature of the problem that I have. The rest of you may have a different bug. When I have difficulty, it is because I am on a window that suppresses the dock, both in remote virtual screen and on the local machine showing the screen. Two docks are suppressed, one remote, one local. Throw in overlapping windows with changing graphics in the overlapped windows and toss in a mouse on top of that. I think that the Screen Sharing is trying to refresh overlapping windows with mouse and going through the suppressed dock calculations and never converging on what the picture should be. The mouse ends up being the visible cue that shows the time frame for iterating the windows - flickers with a timeframe of greater than a second. That is far greater than the screen update time. It is totally compute bound with all the overlapping stuff that it is deconflicting. At least, that is what I think is going on.
Meanwhile, the VMWare VNC server appears to send out a single graphics context and causes the Screen Sharing client to converge to a picture. Note, the mouse appearance is very different when attaching to the VMWare VNC Server rather than the ScreenSharing native server. I see two mouse renderings, the virtual machine remote and a mouse rendering from my Screen Sharing client side. They are mostly in sync in position unless I move the mouse very quickly. If I use Screen Sharing client and server instead, I usually see only one mouse, the client side's mouse rendering.
I have a solution for my problem. It is similar to using a different VNC server/client pairing. I will use a VNC server for the systems giving me trouble that is not Screen Sharing Server exercising a probable bug in the Client (though, it could be a problem in the design of Screen Sharing itself).

Screen sharing mac to mac external

Hello, i am writing from Norway.
I wanna to give support to en external mac machine over internett, but when i search youtube i can only find video that demonstration screen sharing localy in the same local nettwork.
I have tried everyting in my MAC sharing folder but i dont get it work, maybe i am not understanding everything i guess in this sharing folder in MAC-option.
I am not a beginner when it comes to MAC, realy not, but this case its hard for me to solve.
I hope someone can help me or give som feedback.
I have the Macbook Pro from 2011 with Mountain Lion installed.
Best regaards
Kristian Magnussen.

Actually, the 'dns-sd -R' command only registers a service running on the machine on which you are running the command. Notice how there is no parameter for the remote host's IP.
To register a service running on another machine, you have to use the proxy command, 'dns-sd -P'.
The syntax, per the command help, is:
dns-sd -P <Name> <Type> <Domain> <Port> <Host> <IP> \[<TXT>...\]
Playing around with it, I've only been able to get it to work as such:
dns-sd -P label rfb.tcp local. 5900 name.example.com 192.168.1.10
Strangely enough, I had to pass it both a fully-qualified host name that resolves properly in DNS (or maybe .hosts -- I didn't test that) AND the IP address (even though I'd think if it had one, it wouldn't need the other.) Also, just the host name without the fully-qualified domain didn't work either, even though it resolves fine for ping, etc.
Alternatively, one could use a program like Rendezvous Proxy.

Screen sharing worked and not working

i have set up both my computers for screen sharing and have accessed my macbook pro 17" (snow leopard- up to date) for months on my macbook pro 15" (lion- up to date)- it worked....
THEN, when i went in reverse- mb17" accessing my mb15"- it worked...
BUT NOW... neither can access eachother's screen remotely! haven't changed anything, but get the message that i need to 'check the screen sharing is enabled, that my network is working', OR i get the endless 'connecting to mb17"' window that never connects- on both computers!
HOWEVER- both computers can access files remotely... just not the screen
what to do? like i said, IT WORKED until my mp17" accessed my mb15" and neither works... like it cancelled eachother out!
any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi,
Since the earlier post I have managed to Screen Share.
I did put the Mac Firewall On.
It was then as simple as using the item in the iChat Buddies menu (The option to allow sharing has to be On in the Video menu)
It replaced the Video I was having and does not go back to the Video when the Keystroke of Control+ESC is used and the Video chat has to be re-established.
I do not have Encryption.
9:04 PM Tuesday; November 13, 2007

Screen Share Mac and Windows

Hi,
Sometimes I'm asked to help friends and family with stuff on their computers. It would be handy if I could help them remotely but I've yet to find a way to screen share between a mac and windows machine over the internet.
Is it possible?

HI,
A Leopard 10.5 tutorial here might help...
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10329122-263.html
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071023174751182
Sharing your screen with other computer users
You can set up your computer to allow others to view your screen and control your computer. While your screen is shared with another computer, a user of the other computer sees what’s on your screen and can open, move, and close files and windows, open applications, and even restart the computer.
To set up screen sharing:
Choose Apple menu > System Preferences and click Sharing.
Select the Screen Sharing checkbox.
To specify who can share your screen, select one of the following:
All users: Select this if you want to allow any user with a user account on your computer to share your screen.
Only these users: Select this if you want to restrict screen sharing to specific users.
Click Add + at the bottom of the Users list and select a user from Users & Groups (accounts you have set up in Accounts preferences), Network Users (users on your network), or your Address Book. Or click New Person and enter a name and password to create a sharing account. Then select that user from the list and click Select.
Click Computer Settings and set the following options:
Anyone may request permission to control screen: Select this to allow anyone on your network to request to share your screen.
VNC viewers may control screen with password: Select this and enter a password that VNC viewer applications can enter in order to control your screen.
It’s recommended that you not set a password if you only share this computer’s screen using the built-in screen sharing viewer in Mac OS X.
For more information go to your Finder and click Help from the Menu Bar. Type in Screen Sharing in the search field.
I use the same instructions for screen sharing betweeen a Mac running 10.6 to a Mac running 10.5 and a Mac running 10.4, so hopefully the above instructions and links will help.
Carolyn

Connect from Windows through screen sharing (VNC) and get out of full screen mode

How do you get out of fullscreen mode?
I connect to a OS X Lion computer through a Windows computer (which actually also is remote).
I use TightVNC software on Windows to connect. It's the only VNC software I am able to connect to OS X Lion with. TightVNC is kind of weak otherwise in the way that it does not have features for OS X targets - like you can't send "command" key pushes, or even Ctrl pushes and other F2 etc keys just don't really work.
Which means I cannot exit full screened apps by way of Command-F or similar. Moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen also does not pop down the menu (although on some occasions I have been able to do this, I'm not sure how and it's terribly hard to reproduce).
I'd need a on-screen way (like a button to click) to get out of full screen mode.
Any ideas???

Are you using TightVNC because you found it was the only VNC client that worked well with Mac OS X built-in VNC server? Or is there another reason?
Vine Server (aka OSXvnc - free to use the server)
<http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11283/vine-server-%26-viewer>
plays nicer with 3rd party VNC clients, so that you could try any number of other WIndows VNC clients. Maybe one of those will do a better job of sending Command/Control/Option keys.
But if you do install Vine server make sure you turn off Mac OS X Screen Sharing (and/or Remote Managment) so that you do not conflict with port 5900. Or via Vine Server configs, tell Vine Server to use a different port number, such as 5901, then make sure you connect to the correct port from your Windows client.

Mouse not working on screen shared Mac

Screen sharing from Messages works as expected, except the mouse doesn't appear. I see the mouse on my local mouse but when I mouse over to the remove screen/window, the mouse dissapears. The keyboard works– command-tab, for example works on the remote mac from my mac- but the mouse just isn't visible.
Any ideas?

Hi,
I just did this using Bonjour between a Snow Leopard Computer (iChat 5) and Messages in Mountain Lion (version 7)
I started from the Snow Leopard Computer and Offered to "Share My Screen" from there.
The MacBook Pro (Snow Leopard) Screen cam up on the iMac (Mountion Lion).
I could see the cursor on both Screens as I moved around the pic/screen on my iMac the cursor moved on the MacBook Pro.
I tried bringing my own Screen to the front (no Problems) and then mousing over the reduced MacBook Pro screen. It seems it is isolated from the Cursor (As it should be) at this point and did not appear on the MacBook Pro.
How many physical Screens/Displays does the Buddy have ?
Any chance your cursor is so far off to one side that it is not on the view you can see ?
This might also depend on how the Buddy has any external Screens set up.
Most run them left and right but some have them one above the over.
It may also depend if the display is actually On. I once used a second Display/Monitor/Screen and had it turned Off but System Preferences identified it as being "there" and in an iChat Screen Sharing it distorted the view. Very wide letter boxed pic.
10:40 PM Tuesday; July 31, 2012
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Back to My Mac - Screen Sharing Mac OS X 10.10 problem

Sense Mac OS X 10.9 great feature Screen Sharing & Back to My Mac does not works any more.
Mac OS X 10.10.1
Russian interface:
We can see remote computers, but can not connect. We get a error.
English interface:
We can not even see remote macs.
If I start up main computer from Mac OS X 10.8 Screen Sharing works fine. Remote macs has Mac OS X 10.8 and 10.9

I have the same problem, just today (although I'm still running 10.6.8). Every morning I turn on my main Logic mac then fire up my 2 slave macs, connect to them, activate Screen Sharing, and get going.
This morning I tried it, connected to the other macs as usual (I can see/access/alter their hard drives from my main mac) but when I click "Share Screen" I just get the "connecting" dialog box & it just keeps going.
The weird thing is, when I put my laptop into the network via wifi, I can screenshare my main mac's screen (all 3 of them, actually!) but not my 2 slave macs that are ethernet'd to the main mac.
I've tried every solution I could find via google, and nothing is working.
Kirby

Screen sharing hangs and requires restart of target macintosh

Discovered a recurring problem with screen sharing in Mountain Lion. Note I have Apple Remote Desktop installed on many of my machines, as well as the build in VNC Screen Sharing application. I am able to remotely control a target Mac using ARD, however, issues come up when using Screen Sharing. The first connection from client Mac to target Mac (both on 10.8) works fine. However, if I quit the screen share and then try again 15 mins later, screen sharing seems to hang. The connection attempts to be made, but no dialog box comes up. At this point, ARD will not connect to the target mac either. If I use ARD to restart the target mac, a hidden dialog box flashes on my screen (not long enough for me to fully see, but looks like the user/password screen or a varient thereof), followed by a "connection failed" dialgoue on the client. It seems that on the second connection, the client is flashing a dialog and waiting for a response, but the user does not see the dialogue and cannot respond.
Not sure what processes to look for on the client. I have scanned the console and do not see anthing on the client side. On the target side, it appears the connection is being made, even though the client does not realize it. This is from the console of the target machine. By the way, I have replicated this behavior on iMacs and Mac Minis.
7/31/12 3:42:37.170 PM kdc[52]: Got a canonicalize request for a LKDC realm from 192.168.0.101:54288
7/31/12 3:42:37.170 PM kdc[52]: LKDC referral to the real LKDC realm name
7/31/12 3:42:37.170 PM kdc[52]: Got a canonicalize request for a LKDC realm from fe80::ca2a:14ff:fe24:5a23%en0:54289
7/31/12 3:42:37.170 PM kdc[52]: LKDC referral to the real LKDC realm name
7/31/12 3:42:37.195 PM kdc[52]: AS-REQ com.apple.idms.appleid.prd.48754677515363427155546442422b5a642b325872413d3d@LKD C:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A from 192.168.0.101:54290 for krbtgt/LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A@LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43C CE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A
7/31/12 3:42:37.196 PM kdc[52]: UNKNOWN -- com.apple.idms.appleid.prd.48754677515363427155546442422b5a642b325872413d3d@LKD C:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A: no such entry found in hdb
7/31/12 3:42:37.196 PM kdc[52]: AS-REQ com.apple.idms.appleid.prd.48754677515363427155546442422b5a642b325872413d3d@LKD C:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A from fe80::ca2a:14ff:fe24:5a23%en0:54291 for krbtgt/LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A@LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43C CE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A
7/31/12 3:42:37.198 PM kdc[52]: UNKNOWN -- com.apple.idms.appleid.prd.48754677515363427155546442422b5a642b325872413d3d@LKD C:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A: no such entry found in hdb
7/31/12 3:42:37.344 PM kdc[52]: AS-REQ 563A9892EA210311A5167D3D71B50ECC2A6170DB@LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5 F49DD2E6636A from 192.168.0.101:54292 for krbtgt/LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A@LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43C CE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A
7/31/12 3:42:37.345 PM kdc[52]: UNKNOWN -- 563A9892EA210311A5167D3D71B50ECC2A6170DB@LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5 F49DD2E6636A: no such entry found in hdb
7/31/12 3:42:37.345 PM kdc[52]: AS-REQ 563A9892EA210311A5167D3D71B50ECC2A6170DB@LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5 F49DD2E6636A from fe80::ca2a:14ff:fe24:5a23%en0:54293 for krbtgt/LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A@LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43C CE771F87D6E1E53C5F49DD2E6636A
7/31/12 3:42:37.346 PM kdc[52]: UNKNOWN -- 563A9892EA210311A5167D3D71B50ECC2A6170DB@LKDC:SHA1.3A3F14EB43CCE771F87D6E1E53C5 F49DD2E6636A: no such entry found in hdb
7/31/12 3:42:37.492 PM screensharingd[390]: Authentication: SUCCEEDED :: User Name: logan gershon :: Viewer Address: 192.168.0.101 :: Type: DH
7/31/12 3:47:43.173 PM WindowServer[81]: Created shield window 0x68 for display 0x04273740
7/31/12 3:47:43.173 PM WindowServer[81]: device_generate_desktop_screenshot: authw 0x0(0), shield 0x0(0)
7/31/12 3:47:43.181 PM WindowServer[81]: device_generate_lock_screen_screenshot: authw 0x0(0), shield 0x0(0)
ANYBODY HAVE ANY THOUGHTS ON HOW TO GET PAST THIS. SEEMS LIKE A BUG ON APPLE'S PART.

I repaired permissions on target mac and removed a corrupted file from preferences (com.apple.VNCpref.txt). Now working.

Screen sharing -- Mac to Windows

I have two Windows XP computers and one Ubuntu computer that I want to share screens with my MacPro (OSX 10.5.5).
I have TightVNC one one of the Windows XP computers and RealVNC on the other. Both computers have Bonjour installed -- for what it's worth.
My goal is to have all three of my networked computers show up for screen sharing in the Finder's SHARING section.
I enabled Remote Desktop on the Ubuntu computer and "ta-da" it showed up in the Finder's "Sharing" section to screen share with no other intervention whatsoever.
I can't figure out how to make the Windows XP computer show up in the Finder's sidebar.
Note I can use Chicken of the VNC to connect to ALL machines on my network via their static IP addresses. It works fine -- it's just that I think it's very slick and convenient to do it the OSX "way" instead of using the CotVNC client.
What does it take for the Windows XP computers to advertise their screen sharing capability so they'll show up in the Finder's "Shared" sidebar??

Actually, the 'dns-sd -R' command only registers a service running on the machine on which you are running the command. Notice how there is no parameter for the remote host's IP.
To register a service running on another machine, you have to use the proxy command, 'dns-sd -P'.
The syntax, per the command help, is:
dns-sd -P <Name> <Type> <Domain> <Port> <Host> <IP> \[<TXT>...\]
Playing around with it, I've only been able to get it to work as such:
dns-sd -P label rfb.tcp local. 5900 name.example.com 192.168.1.10
Strangely enough, I had to pass it both a fully-qualified host name that resolves properly in DNS (or maybe .hosts -- I didn't test that) AND the IP address (even though I'd think if it had one, it wouldn't need the other.) Also, just the host name without the fully-qualified domain didn't work either, even though it resolves fine for ping, etc.
Alternatively, one could use a program like Rendezvous Proxy.

Screen Sharing, audio, and video chat not working with certain people

My ichat application will suddenly stop working after just a few seconds of starting wither screen sharing, video chat, or audio chat. I get the error message "No data has been received for the last 10 seconds." How do i go about fixing this?

Hi,
This message can be caused two ways.
1) a loss of Internet Connection through a Physical means.
(turning Off Airport card, Pulling out Ethernet Cable, modem or router failure, loss of service from ISP)
2) A router or modem Software intervention.
This most commonly happens in Video chats. The device has a feature called DOS (Denial of Service) which with modern Internet Speeds and Video Streams gets to the threshold where it cuts in. It requires that you turn the feature Off as there is not adjustment in the threshold at which it works.
A similar feature with a similar result is SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection).
Having said that, it very unusual to have it effect Audio only chat or Screen Sharing.
This means the issue could be at the Buddies end.
NOTES:
iChat creates Logs of Connection Failures of which there are about 5 types, caused by various issues in the connection Process.
The 10 Sec Error message covers those things where the connect End but iChat did not receive a "BYE" message (a controlled End to the Chat) or get a failure of another sort.
Basically you were connected properly (even if you did not hear or see the Buddy) and so other event cut the connection that was not iChat related.
Can you do Video chats with any of the 6 names in Table 1 ?
http://www.ralphjohns.co.uk/ContactTesters.html
Some of those will respond to Audio Only invites.
(I just tested 4 of them and three play music and one the Audio form the Jonathon Ive Video)
Do any of those work ?
That will exclude a Modem or Router Issue with DOS or SPI on the remote end.
9:29 PM Wednesday; June 9, 2010
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
Message was edited by: Ralph Johns (UK)
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Sharing Mac and PC on same literal desktop

My new job is pretty much a “PC only” environment. However, since so much of my previous work is based on a Mac, they have agreed to let me have both a Mac and a PC. The company’s IT folks will only work with a PC, so Parallels or even Bootcamp are not options.
Given this, how may I best set-up a shared folder between the two systems? That is, can I connect a cable of some type (USB, Firewire, or Ethernet) between the two computers, so that any file I drag into this shared folder on the PC appears on the Mac and vv? I guess, worst-case scenario, I could e-mail files back and forth, but any ideas for options to share information between the two systems in a more seamless fashion would be greatly appreciated.
The two caveats are that I will likely not get any help from the department IT folks for set-up on the PC side, and my knowledge of networking and sharing on the Mac is not great; thus, any detailed advice or references would be really nice.
Thank you!

Accessing a Airport Network with a Windows XP PC or laptop (with XP SP2)
http://tech.ifelix.net/1011.html
Accessing a Airport Network with a Windows XP PC or laptop (with XP SP1)
http://tech.ifelix.net/1010.html
Sharing files between an XP PC and a Mac running OS 10.4.x
http://tech.ifelix.net/3020.html

External drive sharing mac and pc

How can I format Seagate Hard Drive to allow photos to be viewed and copied from Mac and PC

If you only need the Mac to read from the drive, you can use either FAT32, exFAT, or NTFS.
If you need the Mac to be able to write to it, use FAT32 or exFAT.
If you're going to put an actual iPhoto library on the drive and not unorganized photos, you must use Mac OS Extended. This drive format isn't readable by Windows unless it has software such as MacDrive installed or the drive is being made available as a network share from a Mac or AirPort base station.
(82396)

Grey screen, wiped mac and still same problem

About 2 weeks ago my son accidentally pulled the power cable out of the back of the iMac. He then suffered quite a bit of freezing on several applications and even force quit was not working. He had to hold the power button in to turn off. He then had quite a bit freezing but force quit was working, albeit quite slowly. One day I could not login to my user account, my son had his open and the shared account we use for the iPad and I thought this might be causing my account to start logging in but just ending up back at the login screen. I logged out of the other two accounts and tried again and it worked. It was fine for a few hours but then I logged out and later my son tried to log in to be met with a grey screen and spinning cog. After looking on line we first tried safe boot which worked but then after restarting the same grey screen. It then seemed that we should insert the cd and try disk repair but this was greyed out so we could only verify disk and then the disc would not eject. I couldn't eject from the keyboard or from utilities but finally did it from starting up and clicking left side of mouse. After quite a few more start ups where we had grey screen followed by blue screen then nothing we then got it to start up. I quickly backed everything up using time machine and tried a repair disk again. This time it said the dusk could not be repaired so we prepared to wipe the iMac. I did this with relative ease until an error message showed the installation had failed. Back to the Internet for more help. Verbose mode threw up an error message of disk02 i/o error so we started again with doing a reinstall. It worked and seemed ok for a day or so, then freezing, spinning beach balls etc. I tried a verify permissions and about 50 needed repairing which it did. Worked fine and we started to copy our music and photos back (I don't actually know how to bring back everything but we were running out of space anyway so it seemed ok to just bring things back slowly). It seemed ok though start up was atrociously slow even with nothing on the system but it was working. Then Christmas day and my son has a new iPod which he wants to sync. It starts up fine, he syncs and then turns it off for Christmas lunch. He turns it back on and grey screen but this time nothing else, it can sit with spinning cog for over 10 mins. We've tried the power supply trick, draining the power and waiting but nothing. Is it the hard drive? And if so is it worth repairing or should we be thinking about a new iMac?

Update on my iMac, apple rang today to say they have replaced the hard drive too and let it run on and off since Saturday as the problem was intermittent and they had to make sure it did actually boot up properly. Anyway it seems the pulling of the cable from the back of the iMac caused a power surge which in turn caused problems on the hard drive, I have been saying this since day one but no one would listen! Apple are replacing the hard drive free of charge as they have caused us some inconvenience in not fixing it properly first time. That's what I call excellent customer service.
Quatchi, it sounds like there are similar issues on your hard drive to ours, apple said bad sectors and I'd guess you'll need to replace the hard drive.
Message was edited by: GG31568

Screen sharing Mac apps (that are not iChat)

I only have luck with iChat when I use my AirPort Extreme router. Using my neighboars lynksys router, it never works. Are they are Mac apps out there that will do what iChat does, but without the headaches? I'm looking for some good paid software.
Bryan

You may want to use a web browser based option
Use this link and scroll down to Item 9 through 12
http://www.ralphjohns.co.uk/page5.html#_other
7:59 PM Friday; February 6, 2009
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Screen sharing Mac and PC?

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