How to Control a Computer on Vacation
Even at the risk of angering everyone who participates in the National Day of disconnect from the network , I would like to leave your computer turned on , when I was on vacation. But when I returned from a week-long cross-country trip to Lifehacker headquarters late Saturday night, I made a fatal mistake. Back home, I unpacked my bags, brushed my teeth and fed the cat. I didn’t think to flip my desktop computer over and let it drink a ton of updates overnight, which would have saved me tons of time.
On Sunday, when I really needed to use my system for work, she had other plans. Windows wanted to update to the new Insider Preview build. Okay. Windows also had several other updates that needed to be downloaded, processed, and installed. IN ORDER. All games on Steam needed an update. I thought it might happen, but I was not quite ready for the giant Final Fantasy XV game that was taking too long to decompress the assets I already preloaded and run another 40+ gigabyte additional download. You’re killing me, Square-Enix.
And did I mention that all of these updates – and more – wanted to happen at the same time? My desktop started to sound like a jet, slowed to a crawl and probably pissed off my roommates by sucking all the bandwidth at home for hours.
So what could I have done better?
Energy be damned: just leave your computer on.
This is the least enjoyable, but easiest to use solution when you are on vacation: just leave your desktop or laptop at home. You’re wasting electricity, heating up a home office for no reason, giving a tiny middle finger to the environment (if you don’t have solar panels, go yourself) and adding unnecessary wear and tear to your components. But when you get home, you can immediately return to using your system.
Even if you jump over all the correct hoops, this is not a perfect solution. You should turn off your PC’s display to save power and prevent screen burns. You will also want to make sure that you are running any applications that might need to be updated during your trip. The latest World of Warcraft patch won’t magically appear on your computer unless you launch Battle.net.
Likewise, any larger updates that require a restart on your computer – such as a major Windows update – will ruin your plan if they work the second day of your trip. And if you forget to turn off your system’s sleep timer before leaving home, the operating system (and your apps) won’t be able to update anything if it goes into siesta. (Mac owners should make sure they have Power Nap turned on for their connected systems so they can still receive app and OS updates.)
Hybrid approach: logging in remotely
You may not know when major updates will appear on your system. However, if you know that when you sip your drinks on the beach something big is going to fall, like launching a big Square-Enix game, you can always install a remote desktop app on your home computer.
Depending on which app you are using, you can log into your desktop from a laptop, tablet, or smartphone to test it out. Once your anticipated huge download is complete, you can shut down your system from afar and continue your relaxing vacation knowing that your gaming PC isn’t helping the polar ice caps melt or anything like that.
Having an active remote desktop application on your distant PC is also incredibly useful during vacation times, such as when work requires you to transfer an extremely important spreadsheet, but you forgot to transfer it from your desktop PC to yours. cloud storage before departure. Ouch.
Advanced Mode: Auto Startup, Shutdown and Wake-on-LAN
I often dream of having full control over each of my desktop and laptop computers, turning them on and off from one central control station (or remote system) as needed. And it’s perfectly doable for both Windows and Mac systems – although it’s a little easier for the latter than for the former.
On Windows, you have two main options for turning on the remote PC. If your system BIOS supports this, you can set your computer to turn on automatically at a specific time every day. You can also try configuring Wake-on-LAN , which can be a more complex but equally convenient solution for turning on your system remotely. Then you can use the built-in Windows Task Scheduler to automatically shutdown your system, or you can log in to your system using the Remote Desktop app and turn it off yourself.
It’s a little easier for Apple fans. MacOS not only supports Wake-On-LAN , but automatic startup and shutdown options are built right into the system preferences (Power Saver> Schedule). It really couldn’t be easier, and it’s a great way to make sure you’re getting app and macOS updates in addition to updates and downloads from third-party services like Valve’s Steam.