Remote Desktop Behind Router / Firewall

I live in an apartment complex at college that includes internet access. It is all on the complex network, so I do not have access to firewalls / routers / etc. to make any port forwarding adjustments for remote desktop.

I would like to set up remote desktop however as I often need to access my desktop computer there when I come home / go elsewhere for business purposes. That computer has all my business files on it.

Is there any way around this issue? Ideally, there would be a way without having to get the apartment complex involved as I believe it will be very difficult to get the needed support to get it adjusted.

As I would not be able to forward any ports from the public IP to my desktop there, it seems like the only way to get around it would be for me to connect the desktop to something elsewhere that would allow me to connect to it that way. For example, connect it to one of my servers set up on the web before I leave, and then I connect to it through that server from my laptop. Kind of a 'meet-half-way' deal, although it wouldn't actually be halfway and would probably slow down the connection - but any connection is better than nothing at all. Is this possible?

If not, is there anything specific I should request from the apartment complex that they might be willing to do? I highly doubt they would simply route port 3389 to my machine. Furthermore, our private IP addresses are dynamic if I remember correctly, which could cause further issues.

What would be nice is if they could (and would) make my IP static and open a port for me to make my connections through which routes to my desktop. Then any time I needed access for an application I could just use that port.

Anyways, I am not there right now, but I will see if there is anything they can do when I return (this will be hard, as the staff won't know anything and most probably don't even know who does any networking - the staff is other college students). In the meantime, is there any other option that I could set up somehow to get around this problem?

The situation you describe is why GoToMyPC is widely used, so you can do remote control without mucking around with firewalls.

Is there any other option available that perhaps requires a little more work on my part but free? I have servers, I don't mind doing some configurations and working on it, but I would rather not have to pay monthly for the service as I am not away often enough - but I would still like the ability to remote desktop.

LogMeIn is a free option.

Thanks. I will try that out tomorrow when I get back to the apartment.

If you have access to another server on the internet, you could probably build your own remote setup with VNC. Most vnc implementations offer a vnc proxy as well as just the vnc client and server.

Install hamachi on the computers you want to connect. Create a network, log them both in, have the app set to start whenever windows does, and you have a zero-config vpn between the two. Dont have to do any port forwarding then.