well i had a simular problem

wanted to know from the client wich servers are online before i connect

turned out that there isn`t a way included in .Net remoting to acomplish
that

see my post "is there a way for a client to detect a server on the network"

well i found my way now ,,i have already found some example code wich i can
easily convert

the way i found is sending a multicast notification throughout the network

for instance :

client sends as a multicast message  "AS"    ----- Availlable Servers

servers sends back  as a multicast message  "SA| server IP | Sever name | nr
of current connected clients "

the nice thingy about multicasting is that you do not have to know the IP
range on wich you are currently running

you just use a multicast IP

like this

<appSettings>
 <add key="GroupAddress" value="224.0.1.1" />
 <add key="LocalPort" value="7777" />
 <add key="RemotePort" value="7777" />
 <add key="TTL" value="32" />
</appSettings>

all apps that are listening in the groupadress range and on the specific
broadcast and receive ports will receive the message

well if you need more info ,,, just ask    i am currently bussy implementing
this technique ( converting a multicast chat application to do the Job )