AC has probably covered the actual answer to your question,
I'll just add that if you often have to provide remote support for your fathers computer 200miles away then it would be worth you checking one of the remote access sites out.
have a look at
http://www.logmein.com, setup a free account, give your father the details of the account and get him to log in and add his computer to the account, you can then log in to the account at a later time and take over his computer and operate it remotely to enable you to sort any problems out and actually see what is on his screen.