Is there an easy way to disconnect a laptop from the Internet without breaking Teamviewer/Chrome Desktop?

[Xiga]

Hi SGL

Just planning ahead here, on the off-chance i might get the odd spot of imaging done every now and then.

Like many others i suspect, my imaging laptop is still running Windows 7, which MS has now officially ended support for. So the longer i go on using it, the less secure it will become. The laptop is great, it has an SSD so it's not slow. And everything just works, without fail, so there is no way i am going to upgrade to Win 10 and go through the pain of re-installing all the software and drivers, as no doubt something will not work as it should just when i need it to! I will of course upgrade eventually, but i'm in no rush. 

So does someone know of a simple, easy to do and undo, method of disconnecting a laptop from the WWW, but crucially, still retain the ability to monitor progress via Teamviewer or Chrome Desktop (which i'm yet to try) from inside the house? I don't use the laptop for anything other than astro capture, so keeping it offline is not an issue. And if there are software or driver updates needed, i can just copy them over via USB from my desktop computer. 

I did some Googling, but i didn't get very far. I'm a fairly techy kind of guy, so this feels like something that should be quite simple to do. 

Any ideas folks?

CS. 

Edited February 15, 2020 by Xiga

[stash_old]

Forgeting RDP from M/S for a moment a lot of other Remote viewers require Internet as they act as an relay service and so will not work without the internet. Not totally up to date on Teamviewer but it didn't allow your type of connection. But hen there is this https://community.teamviewer.com/t5/Knowledge-Base/Can-TeamViewer-be-used-within-a-local-network-LAN-only/ta-p/4618

Dont know what version of Win 7 you have but if you can install M/S RDP service on your Win 7 then you can use standard RDP viewer to connect the 2 devices but just use the IP address or see if network explorer on can see the other device (you may have set he Win 7 up NOT to allow RDP). he other problem is that you will need to change the Win 7 to ignore your DHCP as this most likely sets up the default root to be your router (and so the Internet) and set the default gateway to something like 0.0.0.0 but still using the same network IP subnet. 

some info to help with Win 7 end https://kb.parkland.edu/50610

[teoria_del_big_bang]

I don't think Teamviewer works when not connected to Internet, but they may be some workaround using a separate network from your router somebody with better IT knowledge can help you with.

I have used Remote Desktop when no internet is available and could probably have done it with wi-fi but for simplicity used a 30M flat Ethernet cable between mount computer and desktop computer.

Steve

[glowingturnip]

I had some success in testing in getting my laptop and a tablet to talk to each other using teamviewer by using my phone as a mobile wifi hotspot and both connecting to it, but to be honest haven't used it in the field - I think just the pain of setting it all up and worrying it would upset everything else on the laptop outweighed the lesser pain of padding outside every other advert break

[jgs001]

VNC works whether you have a connection to the internet or not, as it's point to point between the two devices (as long as they are on the same network, which can be isolated). If you're using your phone as a mobile wifi hotspot, then your laptop is connecting to the internet through your phones data connection. Yes, you can do teamviewer, but you're no better off than using the normal house network.

[Xiga]

Hi guys

Thanks for the suggestions. I think i may have found a way to do this, but i'll let the techies among you be the judge of that.

All i've done is simply Block Port 80 through the Firewall. Here's a link that describes very simply how to go about doing that:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/872e3a81-defb-4aed-ad95-65656165f26e/close-port-80?forum=w7itprosecurity

After doing this, the laptop can no longer browse the web, but Team Viewer continues to work just the same. 

I'm guessing this isn't perfect, and the laptop is probably not completely secure, but hopefully this is good enough.

[Juicy6]

Install Connectify onto your telescope computer and make it a wifi hotspot or wired Access point. In Settings, select "No internet". Let your notebook only connect to Connectify. Your notebook will connect to scope computer if this is up, else you will have no connection. Blocking port 80 will stop HTTP traffice but maybe updates or intrusion attempts can take place through other ports...

 

https://support.connectify.me/article/83-ethernet-to-ethernet

 

Christer, Sweden

[noah4x4]

The reason recent 'free' versions of TeamViewer insist that you connect to the Internet is so they can monitor for commercial use. If you pay a monthly commercial subscription,  this isn't a requirement.

Frankly, I don't like the idea of anybody (TeamViewer, VNC, Chrome) monitoring my activity. I therefore paid my £119 to get Windows 10 Pro Remote Desktop; which will play nicely over a 5Ghz local WAN or Ethernet cable without any Internet connection.

Windows 10 Pro offers so much extra control. It is much superior to overbloated Home. Still has annoying Google/Microsoft accounts if you choose to use them, but you can turn off all such intrusions if you only use your PC for astro and don't need Internet support. 

Edited February 28, 2020 by noah4x4