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Knowledge Base

How to change the pcAnywhere IP ports

Situation:
Some firewalls only allow a single pcAnywhere host to use an IP port. Additional pcAnywhere hosts behind that firewall must use different ports. You want to know how to change these ports.

Solution:
Changing pcAnywhere IP ports involves editing the Windows registry. If you need to do this frequently, creating .reg files is the safest and most convenient way to make the change. This is particularly handy for remotes that may have to connect to more than one host behind the firewall.

To create the .reg file:


You can use this file both as a template to create .reg files for additional ports and as the .reg file to restore pcAnywhere to its default port values.

To create a .reg file to change pcAnywhere to a different set of ports:
Repeat this process for as many hosts or remotes as required.


Example

The default pcAnywhere port numbers are 5631 (DataPort or TCP) and 5632 (StatusPort or UDP).
The hexadecimal values of these ports are 15FF and 1600, respectively.

You create a new .reg file to change the pcAnywhere ports to 5641 (TCP) and 5642 (UDP).
The hexadecimal values of these ports are 1609 and 160A, respectively.
The contents of a .reg file with these values will look like this:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Symantec\pcAnywhere\CurrentVersion\System]
"TCPIPDataPort"=dword:00001609
"TCPIPStatusPort"=dword:0000160a


To change the port values of pcAnywhere, double-click this file. This imports the new values into the registry.


Port Matching

A pcAnywhere remote does not necessarily have to be set for the same IP port as the host. However, some firewalls may be configured so that the pcAnywhere remote must respond on the same port as the host, otherwise, they will not connect. In this type of situation, the remotes must match the ports for the hosts.


Restricting pcAnywhere Ports

You can force a pcAnywhere host or remote to use only the registered ports. To do this requires a registry change.

The default data value of this entry is "1". The value "0" is automatically assigned when you create the new DWORD entry. This is the correct value to limit pcAnywhere to the registered ports.


A Scenario

You are a remote user and you have three hosts behind a WinRoute firewall that you need to connect to. Each of those hosts operates on a different set of ports. In this example, the hosts are StationA, StationB, and StationC.

To connect to these hosts, you need to create three .reg files - one for each set of ports. In this example, these files are StationA.reg, StationB.reg, and StationC.reg.

To connect to StationA, double-click the StationA.reg file. If you do this on a Windows 98 computer, you will be prompted with the following dialog box:



Click yes.

NOTE: Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 do not prompt you. They import the registry file immediately.

When your data is entered into the registry, you see the following:



pcAnywhere on the remote will now connect to any host operating on the ports 5631/5632.

When you need to connect to your host on StationB, you will have to double-click the StationB.reg file to change your remote to connect to any host operating on the ports 5641/5642. The same applies to connecting to StationC.

REMEMBER: Ports 5631/5632 are the standard pcAnywhere IP ports. Always keep a .reg file to restore you to those ports.

How to determine hexadecimal values
Hexadecimal is a 16 based counting system. In the decimal system, we count from 0 (zero) to 9, in the hexadecimal system, we count from 0 (zero) to F. (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F).

To convert a decimal value to hexadecimal:


Product(s): pcAnywhere 9.0, pcANYWHERE32 version 7.5 - Win95/NT, pcANYWHERE32 version 8.0 - Win95/NT
Operating Systems(s): Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows NT3.51
Document ID: 1999110411575512
Date Created: 08/08/2000
Last Modified: 11/20/2001