Patent ID: 7676675

Claim:
A system that facilitates remotely connecting an external computer outside of at least one of a router or a firewall or a protected intranet to an internal computer that is part of the intranet, the remote connection established directly between the external computer and a router in the intranet, the system comprising: a request component that receives a request to remotely connect to at least one internal computer that is selected by a user from a dynamically assembled list of available computers that are part of the intranet, wherein the availability of the computers is determined based on both the user's credentials that identify the user and based on a determination that one or more of the operational computers is suitable, wherein suitability for a computer indicates whether the computer has a suitable operating system or remote access capabilities, wherein operational but unsuitable computers are not indicated as being available; a connection component that, in response to an authentication of the request, creates a thread to manage a network connection between a listening socket port of the router and a port of the at least one selected internal computer designated at least in part for network connections, the connection component opens a single external port to which is mapped one or more internal ports to internal computers and dynamically listens on the ports, the router forwards terminal services data messages between the external computer and the selected internal computer, thereby allowing a terminal services session through the firewall; and a display generating component that sends a dynamically generated menu specific to the user to the external computer, wherein the dynamically generated menu includes links to one or more software applications and other resources that the user is permitted to access, wherein the user, using the menu links, can launch an application from the selected internal computer that is not installed on the external computer.