Remote Assistance

Ever have a situation where a family member or friend was in need of technical assistance but you were both located miles apart? Well, there are many software solutions for this problem but I’m going to talk about and walk through setting up Remote Assistance that comes default with Windows XP. The catch is that one must have a Passport account and you must use Windows Messenger.

Getting Started

1. Ensure that both machines have Remote Assistance enabled. Do this by right clicking on your “My Computer” icon. Then select “Properties” from the pop-up menu and click on the “Remote” tab. Put a checkmark in “Allow Remote Assistance…”. Example:
2. Click on the Advanced… button and use these settings (the defaults are too long IMO):
3. Click the OK buttons to close down all dialogs.
4. Next launch Windows Messenger from your Windows Start menu.
5. Create a user account or use an existing one if you already have one (this, in affect, will create a Passport account for you as well). Do this for both machines.
6. Have both users sign into Windows Messenger and add themselves as contacts for each. At this point you should be able to chat with each other without any issues.

NOTE: You might need to reboot both machines when enabling Remote Assistance for the first time.

Using Remote Assistance

1. The user that needs assistance must initiate the connection. Do this staring a chat with the user (in this example: Aeonscope) who is going to help the user who needs assistance. As shown here:
2. After Aeonscope has accepted Remote Assistance, the user who needs assistance will see the following prompt and need to accept it (as outlined in red):
3. At this point Aeonscope can see the other user’s screen. However, that is all that can be done. Should the Aeonscope user wish to take total control of the remote machine, all the Aeonscope user has to do is click the “Take Control” button from the main menu as shown here:
4. At this point the user in need of assistance will get the following prompt:

You will want to say yes to this prompt (as outlined in red above).

From this point forward the Aeonscope user has total control of the other user’s computer. When all assistance of the remote user’s machine is complete. One only needs to release control of the remote machine and then disconnect.

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