Screen Sharing in Leopard (and Snow Leopard)

  Screen Sharing is a great feature that has been conveniently located in the Finder of the Mac OS introduced in Leopard. It was possible to do this before but never has it been so easy or convenient to access. No longer do you need 3rd party programs to enjoy screen sharing. So what IS screen sharing?

  Screen Sharing has been around for a long time. It also goes by the name "VNC", "remote access" or "remote control". All you're really doing is "remote controlling" a computer through the computer that you're at. So if you can imagine it, imagine opening a window on your Mac and that window displays the screen of another computer on the network. For Screen Sharing to work, you must be on the same network as the remote computer. That means you CANNOT share the screen of another computer over the internet easily*. (please read below for more details because iChat makes this easily possible!)

  So, assuming that you're on the same network, all you have to do is turn Screen Sharing on in the System Preferences. So, go to the Apple Menu,

System Preferences, and then go to the Sharing Preference Pane.

  As you can see from the above screen shots, I checked "Screen Sharing" and I am also allowing access for ALL USERS. That means that anyone who has an account on this machine can access this computer via screen sharing.

  Now that this computer is setup to allow Screen Sharing, here is how you actually do it.

HOW TO SCREEN SHARE

  Simply open any Finder window. You can do this by going to the File menu and selecting "New Window" or you can press "Command-N" or you can double-click on your Hard Drive icon.

  Keep in mind that you're Finder window will ONLY look like this IF you are running Leopard or Snow Leopard:

  You will then be prompted to enter your username and password:

  Be sure to put the username and password of the user that is allowed to access that machine. This is often a point of confusion! This is referring to the users of the REMOTE machine, not your own (local) machine. Even though I am connecting from MY computer, I am trying to access Patrick's computer (in this case), so therefore, I can use Patrick's username and password to connect. Access can also be restricted to however it was setup in the previous steps. Maybe Patrick only allowed access to his computer by some users. In this case, though, you can see that he allowed access to ALL users.

  The next window that opens will be his remote screen. Within this window, I can now control his computer as if I were sitting in front of it. Obviously, performance will not be the same as if I really were in front of it because al that graphical data (the user interface) must come through the network. But this is a great way to share the screen of someone else's computer for various reasons. Parents can check on their kids, techs can take control and fix a remote computer quickly and easily and people can share pictures and presentations through iChat this way. Another common reason for this is to have a headless Mac (a Mac with no display) that performs a single function (like maybe a media server, or a Mac hooked up to an client ID card scanner), and have it perform that one task without the space required for a display. Since it is only performing that one function, there is little need for a display. In this case, if you ever needed to adjust something on the Mac, connect to it via screen sharing and avoid the need to hook up a keyboard, mouse and display to it!

  REMEMBER: You are sharing the screen of this remote computer. So, when you are finished with the task at hand, be sure to close the Screen Sharing window. Do not get confused with the windows within the Screen Sharing window. You want to close the outer-most window. Or, you can simply go to the Screen Sharing menu (up top) and then go to "Quit".

*iChat allows you to activate screen sharing from across the internet. However, this requires you to have an iChat account.