How to use remote assistance alowing asisted user to see your action?

[elkinm]

Hi,

Basicaly I need to assist some induviduals that do not understand most computer terms or how to get arround the system. What I want to do is to set up a remote assistance session, but while the session is active I also want the other person to be able to interact and see the desktop as I want to be able to teach them how to find something and at the same time I want then to be able to show me what problems they are talking about.

I want to use assistance as it can easily be used by almost any user but a third party program would need to be installed, set up and activated for me to be able to use it.

Thank You
Michael Elkin

 

[gaidin123]

Are you talking about Remote Assistance in Windows XP? If not, you just described it exactly. Either user's request remote assistance or, if you are in a domain, you can offer remote assistance as well. When you first connect to the user's machine the user gets a popup notice telling them that someone wants to connect. If they click yes you get a chat window that opens up and the "expert" can only view the user's screen. He/she then can ask to take control of the mouse/keyboard and again the user must accept this before you can continue. If you or the user hits Esc I think the control gets disabled. You can also have mouse wars.

Basically it works incredibly well and is one of the biggest timesavers for desktop support type issues (how do I add an additional email to my outlook? how can I add a new printer? etc. etc).

Remote Assistance (share screen) is different than Remote Desktop/Terminal Services (separate screens).

If you don't have XP setup then you can just install UltraVNC and have a slower, freeer version that will work across platforms.

Gaidin

 

[elkinm]

So it can have a shared full controll screen with shared contorls like the mouse? I am talking about XP and if this can be done then it is great. Now you said that with a domain I can offer a remote desktop connection. I don't have a domain, but I was wondering if it possible to create a script file that would automaticly request a conection to my computer and maybe I can email to the other person and the other person can simply run it and it would send the remote assistance invitation back to me?

Thanks again
elkinm

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: elkinm
So it can have a shared full controll screen with shared contorls like the mouse?

I don't remember being able to "share" control, i.e. have both your mouse and the user's mouse control the pointer at the same time. But I don't have a setup to test it with right now.

I am talking about XP and if this can be done then it is great. Now you said that with a domain I can offer a remote desktop connection. I don't have a domain, but I was wondering if it possible to create a script file that would automaticly request a conection to my computer and maybe I can email to the other person and the other person can simply run it and it would send the remote assistance invitation back to me?

This may be possible to script - I don't know - but would it be any easier than having them IM you and click the "Ask for Remote Assistance" that's already built into Messenger? Seems like that would be just as simple.

Also, you say you're not on a domain - does that also mean you're not on the same network? There are a number of issues with remote assistance across the Internet, mainly due to NAT devices. Before you sink a lot of time into this, you'll want to make sure that the network situation makes Remote Assistance possible at all.

 

[elkinm]

I have a firewall but I opened port 3398 as per microsoft instructions. The other end has no firewall. So I think that remote assistance should work. If not, is there any way to configure remote desktop to run like remote assistance as far as visibility and dual controls?

And if not, is there any way to script the install of UltraVNC so the other individual could simply run a file that would install it and set it to the proper settings automaticly?

Thanks again

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: elkinm
I have a firewall but I opened port 3398 as per microsoft instructions. The other end has no firewall. So I think that remote assistance should work.

Yes, that should be OK. If your firewall does stateful packet filtering, you shouldn't even need to do any forwarding or port opening on your end - if you're the assister, it's your machine that initiates the connection to the assistee. So you'll create a state table entry when you start the connection. The more important bit is whether or not there's a NAT device on the other end.

If not, is there any way to configure remote desktop to run like remote assistance as far as visibility and dual controls?

Though they're built on the same branch of terminal server technology, remote desktop and remote assistance have fundamentally different purposes. Most simply, remote desktop will always start a new login session whereas remote assistance will let you join in an established one. Remote assistance is what you want.

And if not, is there any way to script the install of UltraVNC so the other individual could simply run a file that would install it and set it to the proper settings automaticly?

I haven't experimented with any flavor of VNC in quite a while, so I couldn't say. But Remote Assistance appears to be a good solution in your case anyway, so I'd stick with that.

 

[elkinm]

Thanks a lot cleverhandle. I will try it out and see what happens.