WinXP Remote Assistance

[ghoti]

I am trying to use Remote Assistance to help my elderly mother with her computer. On her computer (WinXP home), using Outlook Express, I sent my computer (Win XP Pro) an invitation to render Remote Assistance. Using Outlook (on my computer) I opened the invitation and tried to accept the invitation. I repeatedly get the error message: "Remote Assistance connection could not be established because the remote host name could not be resolved. Please try again."

She has Kerio firewall on her machine, and I made sure that port #3389 is open.

Anyone got some help to offer, please? Would it help to use Microsoft Messenger (which I hate and would rather avoid) to send/ receive the invitation?

Thanks in advance -- I sure need the help.

 

[bsobel]

The error seems pretty straight forward, the address your getting from your mom isn't resolvable (the system can't convert it from a text name to an IP address). Is your mom perhaps behind a router, are you getting an internal IP as her address? Can you post one (expired is ok) invitation to the thread?

 

[Tsaico]

try logmein.com... works great for this kind of scenario...

 

[ghoti]

Thanks for the suggestions.

As to logmein, I hate to spend more money on software if not absolutely necessary. I may come to it, but not without trying to resolve this first.

As to bsobel's query, Mom has no router; she is on optonline.net, using a cable modem. I believe Optonline is an ISP which provides an address for each time one connects; it is not static. Nonetheless, I left her computer on (and therefore presumably connected through the cable modem) while I drove home and tried (about 3/4 hour later) to accept the invite. Shouldn't the address remain static for that duration?

Can I go to her computer and check the address (please refresh me on how to do that?), and then try the NUMBER address in the blank in the invite?

I am a bit leery about posting a copy of the invite; in any case, I don't see any useful info to be gleaned from it.

Shall I try having her re-extend an invite, this time using MS Messenger to send and receive?

 

[bsobel]

The invite, as I recall, contains the computer address I wanted to see what was being sent as it should offer the most clues as to why you can't resolve the name. You can PM it to me if you like.

 

[Tsaico]

logmein is free for remote desktop control only. I personally use their free software for much of my family, and have a couple of their paid services for things like file transfer, chat, etc... It is a little expensive, but it probably paying for all those free loaders...

You can send an email that will take them to download the client and install itself, or you can go there, log in yourself, and load the software from there... In any case, it works pretty well.

 

[ghoti]

bsobel,

The morning of June 7, I sent a copy of the invitation attachment to the e-mail address listed in your profile. Did you get it?

Thanks.

 

[bsobel]

Sorry, was traveling. The invite looked ok, did have a valid external IP and worked (for resolution purposes) properly here, which leaves me stumped for now (I really did expect to see an internal IP in the invite causing the problem....)

 

[Tsaico]

don't forget invatiations can expire...