Section 5.2. Remote Assistance: All Versions | Windows Vista: The Missing Manual

5.2. Remote Assistance: All Versions

You may think you know what stress is: deadlines, breakups, downsizing. But nothing approaches the frustration of an expert trying to help a PC beginner over the phonefor both parties.

The expert is flying blind, using Windows terminology that the beginner doesn't know. Meanwhile, the beginner doesn't know what to look for and describe on the phone. Every little step takes 20 times longer than it would if the expert were simply seated in front of the machine. Both parties are likely to age ten years in an hour .

Fortunately, that era is at an end. Windows' Remote Assistance feature lets somebody having trouble with the computer extend an invitation to an expert, via the Internet. The expert can actually see the screen of the flaky computer, and even take control of it by remotely operating the mouse and keyboard. The guru can make even the most technical tweaksrunning utility software, installing new programs, adjusting hardware drivers, even editing the Registry (Appendix B)by long-distance remote control. Remote Assistance really is the next best thing to being there.

5.2.1. Remote Assistance: Rest Assured

Of course, these days, most people react to the notion of Remote Assistance with stark terror. What's to stop some troubled teenager from tapping into your PC in the middle of the night, rummaging through your files, and reading your innermost thoughts?

Plenty. First of all, you, the help-seeker, must begin the process by sending a specific electronic invitation to the expert. The invitation has a time limit: If the helper doesn't respond within, say, an hour, the electronic door to your PC slams shut again. Second, the remote-control person can only see what's on your screen. She can't actually manipulate your computer unless you grant another specific permission.

Finally, you must be present at your machine to make this work. The instant you see something fishy going on, a quick tap on your Esc key disconnects the interloper.

Tip: If you still can't stand the idea that there's a tiny keyhole into your PC from the Internet, choose Start

Control Panel. Click Classic View, if necessary, and then double-click the System icon.In the System dialog box, click the Remote Settings link (left side), authenticate (page 191), and turn off "Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer." Click OK. Now youve effectively removed the use of the Remote Assistance feature from Windows.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
Compatibility Backward

Is Vista's version of Remote Assistance compatible with Windows XP machines? What about Windows Server 2003?

Well, sort of.

Remote Assistance works between Vista and these earlier systems if they initiate the connection. You, the guru using Vista, cannot offer assistanceyou can only accept the struggling person's invitation.

Furthermore, Vista's version of Remote Assistance doesn't let you talk to the other person. If the XP or Server 2003 victims click the Start Talk button, they'll just be talking to themselves .

If you're a bit picky, and you want to ensure that only true-blue Vista people answer your pleas for help, open the System applet in the Control Panel; click "Remote settings"; authenticate yourself (page 191); click Advanced; and turn on "Create invitations that can only be used from computers running Windows Vista or later." Click OK.

5.2.2. Remote Assistance, Step by Step

Anybody with Windows XP, Server 2003, or Vista can help anyone else with one of those operating systems. The steps, however, are different depending on whether you're the flailer or the helper.

The following steps assume that you're running Windows Vista. (The steps are slightly different if you're using Windows XP or Server 2003but then you'd be reading a different book, wouldn't you?)

Tip: If you and your guru are both fans of Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft's chat program, you have at your disposal a more direct way of starting a Remote Assistance session. When you see that your guru is online in Messenger, choose Actions

Start Request Remote Assistance.If the guru accepts, and you accept the acceptance, then a Remote Assistance session begins, without you having to go through all the email rigamarole described below.

5.2.2.1. Instructions for the novice

If you're the one who wants help, first make sure that your PC has been set up to allow Remote Assistance (and remote control).

Choose Start Control Panel. Click Classic View; double-click the System icon. In the links at left, click "Remote settings," and then authenticate yourself (page 191).

Here before you is the master switch for permitting remote connections. If you click Advanced (the button, not the tab), you'll find two other key security options:

Allow this computer to be controlled remotely . If this is turned on, your guru will be able to operate your PC, not just see what's onscreen.
Invitations . These options let you specify how quickly an invitation to a guru expires . Of course, nobody can get into your PC without a confirmation by you, while you're seated in front of it. Even so, it may give you an extra level of comfort knowing that after, say, three hours of waiting for your guru to come home and get your invitation, the window of opportunity will close.

Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes.

NOSTALGIA CORNER
Help for Dialog Boxes

In Windows XP, whenever you faced a dialog box containing a cluster of oddly worded options, the "What's This?" feature came to the rescue. It made pop-up captions appear for text boxes, checkboxes, option buttons , and other dialog box elements.

You summoned these pop-up identifiers by clicking the ? button in the upper-right corner of the dialog box, and then clicking the element you wanted identified.

In Vista, there's still a ? button in some dialog boxes. But it doesn't offer anything like pop-up captions. Instead, it opens an article from the standard Windows Help center that explains the relevant dialog box as a whole.

Now you're ready to send the invitation itself:

Choose Start Help and Support .

The Help and Support Center appears, as described earlier in this chapter.
Click "Windows Remote Assistance."

You'll see this item under the "Ask someone" heading. After a moment, a window appears. It wants to know if you're the helper or the helpee.
Click "Invite someone you trust to help you."

The phrase "you trust"new in Windows Vistais Microsoft's little way of reminding you that whoever you invite will be able to see anything you've got open on the screen. (Those who would rather keep that private know who they are.)

In any case, now the "How do you want to invite someone?" screen appears.

Tip: If you click "Save this invitation as a file" at this point, Vista invites you to save a ticket file a standalone invitation fileto your hard drive. You'll have to do that if you have a Web-based email account like Google Mail, Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail. (Make up a password firstsee step 5, below, for an explanationand then attach the file you've saved in this step when sending a message to your guru.)Saving the file is also handy because you can save some steps by resending it to your guru the next time you're feeling lost.
Click "Use email to send an invitation."

Now Vista wants you to make up a password. It's designed to ensure that your guru, and only your guru, can access your machine. (Of course, you need to find some way of telling that person what the password ismaybe calling on the phone or sending a separate email.)
Type a password into both boxes and then click Next .

You're going to be sending your invitation via email. If you've never set up email on this PC, Vista automatically opens up Windows Mail and begins the email account-setup wizard. (The window may be behind the Remote Assistance window; check your taskbar.)

Set up your account as described in Chapter 12, because if you don't have an account, you're pretty much out of luck with Remote Assistance. Get on the phone and ask your guru to drive over to your place.

In any case, if you do have working email, then your email program now opens, and Windows actually composes an invitation message for you. "Hi," it begins. "I need help with my computer. Would you please use Windows Remote Assistance to connect to my computer so you can help me?"

You're welcome to edit this message, of course, perhaps to something that does a little less damage to your ego.
Type your guru's email address into the "To:" box, and then send the message .

Windows sends an electronic invitation to your Good Samaritan.

Now there's nothing to do but sit back, quietly freaking out, and wait for your guru to get the message and connect to your PC. (See the next section.)

If your buddy accepts the invitation to help you, then the message shown at top in Figure 5-3 appears, asking if you're absolutely , positively sure you want someone else to see your screen. If you click Yes, the assistance session begins.

Figure 5-3. Both parties have to be very, very sure that they want this connection to take place. Top (expert's screen): You must type in the password provided by the struggling novice who asked for help .
Bottom (beginner's screen): You must confirm one last time that you really want a visitation from someone who's technically savvier than you are .

If you get a note that your expert friend wants to take control of your PC (Figure 5-3, bottom), and that's cool with you, click OK.

Now watch in amazement and awe as your cursor begins flying around the screen, text types itself, and windows open and close by themselves (Figure 5-4).

Figure 5-4. Top: This is what you see, wise master, as you watch the flailing beginner from across the Internet. You are now ready to tell him what he's doing wrong .
Bottom: This is what you see, desperate grasshopper, as your guru wants to do more than see your screenhe wants to control it. If you turn on the "Allow to respond" checkbox, this person will also be able to authenticate certain system changes as he goes (page 191) .

As noted earlier, if the expert's explorations of your system begin to unnerve you, feel free to slam the door by clicking the "Stop sharing" button on the screenor just by pressing the Esc key. Your friend can still see your screen, but can no longer control it. (To close the connection completely, so that your screen isn't even visible anymore, click the Disconnect button.)

5.2.2.2. Instructions for the expert

When the novice sends you an email invitation, it arrives in your email program with an attachmenta tiny file called RATicket.MsRcIncident. This is your actual invitation, a Remote Assistance ticket .

When you open it, you're asked to supply the six-digit password that your helpless newbie created in step 5 above. Once that's done, the online help session can begin.

Tip: And by the way, if the novice, a trusting individual, sends you a Remote Assistance ticket that doesn't expire for a very long time (99 days, for example), keep it around on your desktop or in your Start menu. From now on, both of you can skip all of the invitation-and-response rigmarole. Now, whenever he needs your help, he can just call you up or email you. And all you have to do is double-click your ticket and wait for the OK from the other side.

At this point, you observe a strange sight: the other person's screen in a special Remote Assistance window (Figure 5-4, top). To communicate with your troubled comrade, chat on the phone, if you like, or click the Chat button to type back and forth.

Tip: If the victim's screen isn't exactly the same size as yours, click the "Fit to screen" button identified in Figure 5-4. With each click on that button, you cycle your display between two modes.In the first one, the other person's screen is represented at full size , although you may have to scroll around to see all of it. With another click, Windows compresses (or enlarges) the other person's screen image to fit inside your Remote Assistance window, even though the result can be distorted and ugly.

When you want to take control of the distant machine, click "Request control" on the toolbar at the top of your screen. Of course, all you've actually done is just ask permission to take control (Figure 5-4, bottom).

If it's granted, you can now use your mouse, keyboard, and troubleshooting skills to do whatever work you need to do. You can type messages back and forth (click Chat on the toolbar) or even send files back and forth (click Send Files on the toolbar).

When your job is done, click Disconnect on the toolbaror wait for your grateful patient to do so.

Tip: Once you've taken control of the other person's screen, your first instinct might be to close the gargantuan Remote Assistance window that's filling most of the screen. Don't. If that window closes, the connection closes , too. What you really want is to minimize it, so it's out of your way but not closed.

TROUBLESHOOTING MOMENT
When the Aero Misses

Transmitting a live video feed from one PC to another across the network or Internet requires a fairly speedy connection. That's why you may not see all the glamour of the Aero design (page 22) when you're connected to someone via Remote Access.

You, the struggling help-seeker, can restore the Aero look, if your connection is fast enough. Click Settings on the Remote Access toolbar. In the resulting dialog box, the "Bandwidth usage" slider controls how complete the visual treats areand how much data gets used as a result.

(What's especially odd is that you can see the remote computer's Aero design even if your computer is too slow to handle Aero!)

This dialog box also offers, by the way, a "Save a log of this session" option. It creates a text file that records every step of your assistance setting. Later, you can inspect it to reassure the paranoid inside of you that no files were deleted or transferred without your awareness by the person you trusted.