Better way of accessing files on remote PC

[Lemming Train]

I have a PC tucked away in a corner of the house running a program 24/7 which produces a log file. The PC is connected wirelessly to my router. The program folder and program installation sits on the desktop and the log file is a text file within said program folder.

I like to access the log file every couple of days which I do from my main PC using the built-in Network Homegroup thingy. However for reasons I don't know there is a considerable delay before it can 'see' the PC after clicking on 'network'. If I don't give it around 30 seconds it tells me it can't find the PC but after that it's alright. Both PCs run Windows 8.1.

Are there any slick lightweight programs that will perform this function that I can use instead? Note I said lightweight so this rules out the bloated POS that is Dropbox. The PC is ancient and only has a 40GB HDD in it. I imagine I could probably configure a file sync in Drive but there isn't anything installed on the PC other than the OS and the program I run. I don't have Chrome on it which I would need to use Drive and I don't particularly fancy being permanently logged in to my google account in order to do it.

Thanks .

[chris285]

Is it a single log file or multi ones such as one per day for example? May be worth looking at a NAS drive, and setup a batch file or similar to copy it over to the NAS drive on a regular basis depending on frequency needed, however downside is you won't ever be looking at a live version.

I'd say best thing may be to maybe to configure a webpage to host the log file potentially, that way can be accessed in a web browser and is always live and should be fairly low resource wise

[Corso Marche]

Lemming Train said:

I don't have Chrome on it which I would need to use Drive and I don't particularly fancy being permanently logged in to my google account in order to do it.

Thanks .

Is it actually necessary to have Chrome, as opposed to Google's Backup & Sync program (Drive) only? I'd be surprised if chrome was necessary.
If you're exploring that avenue I'd create a separate Google account specifically for that file/folder, and then share said folder with your existing Google account for access. No security compromised on your main account that way.

[Lemming Train]

It's a single text file that gets automatically updated by the program. It needs to be the live version and I don't want to get into batch files unless someone is willing to write me a full set of instructions as I don't know anything about them.

[Lemming Train]

Corso Marche said:

Is it actually necessary to have Chrome, as opposed to Google's Backup & Sync program (Drive) only? I'd be surprised if chrome was necessary.
If you're exploring that avenue I'd create a separate Google account specifically for that file/folder, and then share said folder with your existing Google account for access. No security compromised on your main account that way.

How do you open Drive without a browser? The Drive file name is https://drive.google.com

Chrome was just an example - the PC is too old and slow to run any of the currents browsers at much more than a slideshow.

[geeks]

Just setup a shared folder so that rather than click on Network and wait for the discovery you can just hop straight onto the share. A batch file copy is easy enough to setup as well if you give us the variables one can be knocked up for you. Drop me a PM if you want a hand!

[Lemming Train]

geeks said:

Just setup a shared folder so that rather than click on Network and wait for the discovery you can just hop straight onto the share. A batch file copy is easy enough to setup as well if you give us the variables one can be knocked up for you. Drop me a PM if you want a hand!

Do you mean to do it over the local network Dan?

Eg.
C:\Users\LT\Desktop\PSK\log.txt

Destination:
\\LT-mainpc\Users\LT\Desktop

Edited by Lemming Train on Tuesday 5th February 13:36

[Davie_GLA]

You don’t have to have chrome installed to use drive as you can down load a reasonably light weight desktop program.

However I’d just share the folder on the PC holding the file then map a drive direct to it. That way you have a drive letter, and it’s “live”

[grumbledoak]

OP, it sounds like your Network Discovery isn't set to on all the time, and is starting up on demand. You can change that.

Google found this, look at Option Two:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/49652-turn-off...

[Lemming Train]

grumbledoak said:

OP, it sounds like your Network Discovery isn't set to on all the time, and is starting up on demand. You can change that.

Google found this, look at Option Two:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/49652-turn-off...

Thanks, I'll see if there's an equivalent setting in 8.1 for it.

[buggalugs]

geeks said:

Just setup a shared folder so that rather than click on Network and wait for the discovery you can just hop straight onto the share. A batch file copy is easy enough to setup as well if you give us the variables one can be knocked up for you. Drop me a PM if you want a hand!

This

A shortcut will work straight away you don’t have to wait for the network discovery