How do I get started with VNC Connect on Windows and Mac?

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On-Demand Assist - the new name for Instant Support

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Setting up your account

The video below shows how to get started:

To subscribe to VNC Connect, see How do I subscribe to VNC Connect?

If you are setting up On-Demand Assist, see Getting Started with On-Demand Assist

On the computer you want to control

  1. Download VNC Connect
  2. Click the Install VNC Server button and follow the on-screen instructions.
  3. You should be prompted to license the VNC Server program when installation finishes, but if not select Licensing from the VNC Server shortcut menu:
    Windows Mac
    mceclip0.png mceclip1.png
  4. Apply your subscription to VNC Server by signing in using your RealVNC account credentials.
    licensewiz.PNG
    (If you have an Enterprise subscription, you can register offline using your license key, available from the Deployment page of your RealVNC account.) 

Note: If you want to install VNC Server remotely over RDP, see Can I install VNC Server on a Windows computer over RDP? 

Note: If you want to install VNC Server on MacOS Mojave or Catalina, further setup is required. Please see Known Issues when connecting to macOS Mojave and Catalina (10.14 and 10.15).

Inviting people to your team

If you are using Cloud connections, to allow others to access your computers remotely, see How do I invite people in to my team to share remote access?

For more about Teams, see What is a team, and how do I add computers and people to it?

Authentication

With Professional or Enterprise subscriptions, System authentication is the default. This means you will need to use the username and password of an account on the remote computer. For more information, see What username and password do I enter when I'm trying to connect to VNC Server?

Important note on Permissions

You need to ensure that the users you want to be able to connect remotely have been given permission (by default, only members of the Administrators group are able to connect). To add other users, see Managing users and session permissions for VNC Server. Failure to do this may result in not being able to connect to your computer remotely.

Enterprise Deployments

If you have an Enterprise subscription and want to deploy, license, and configure VNC Server using Group Policy, see Deploying and licensing VNC Connect using Windows MSIs and Setting up Group Policy under Windows

On the device you want to control from

  1. Download VNC Connect
  2. Click the Install VNC Viewer button and follow the on-screen instructions.
  3. Sign in using your RealVNC account credentials. You should see the remote computer appear in your team:

    faq-get-connected.png

  4. Click or tap to connect. You are prompted to authenticate to VNC Server. See this article for the credentials you need to enter: What username and password do I enter when I'm trying to connect to VNC Server?

If the computer you want to connect to is running Linux, please see How do I get started with VNC Connect on Linux?

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  • I cannot sign-in at VNC Viewer - it comes "failed to connect due to network error."

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