Hack 13 Shortcut to Remote Assistance

Remote Assistance is a helpful feature for troubleshooting Windows XP systems, but it's a pain for ordinary users to use. This hack creates a helpful shortcut to this feature .

Windows XP provides a Remote Assistance feature, but you have to walk through several screens to get to it. This can be a problem for users who are not technically savvy, and you might find yourself spending a lot of time explaining to them how to use the feature. However, there's a really cool workaround. Place a shortcut to this feature on users' desktops. This will provide them with quicker access to the screen where they can type in the remote computer's IP address to ask for remote assistance. This approach will make life easier for both you and your users.

First, right-click on the desktop and choose New Shortcut. Then, in the Create Shortcut box, type the following URL into the Location Box:

 hcp://CN=Microsoft%20Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote%20Assistance/ Escalation/Unsolicited/unsolicitedrcui.htm 

as shown in Figure 1-14.

Figure 1-14. Creating a shortcut to the Remote Assistance feature

Click Next and name the shortcut something descriptive, like "Remote Assistance" (Figure 1-15).

Figure 1-15. Naming the shortcut

When the shortcut creation is finished, you'll have an icon on your desktop for Remote Assistance (Figure 1-16).

Figure 1-16. Desktop icon for Remote Assistance

When you double-click on this icon, you'll be whisked away to the Remote Assistance feature, as shown in Figure 1-17. Simply type the computer name or IP address of the computer you want to connect to for remote assistance.

Figure 1-17. Remote Assistance window

Pretty handy, eh?

Rod Trent