Remote Assistance: Expert Initiation

Guys!

I hope you all are fine. Work in the IT Dept of a company; upgrading all computers to the many benefits of XP Pro, I am testing among the many things, Remote Assistance. I have run into this problem, can RA only be initiated by the "Novice" user? Is there a way that the Expert starts the session and is accepted by the user to control the novice's computer?


This is the original method

Novice has tech problems, creat RA-> Invites Expert -> Expert accepts and takes control of Novice's PC.


I want to ....

User calls, I have tech issues -> Expert says, OK I am initiating RA, click Accept -> Novice clicks Accept to allow control of PC -> Expert resolves tech request, case closed.

Please help ....


Lev

 

Just heard from a another corporate friend of mine (non-techie) that they use a similar setup but when they call tech support the techie tells them not to work and he sees the cursor moving and the techie is working on the computer. There is no initiation etc. Just tells the user to sit back and watch..... now thats something even better!

Does anyone know how this can be done? All are on XP Prof.

Thanks.

Lev

 

Yes there is... Here listed under "Offering Help via Remote Assistance" http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/adminra.mspx#EFAA

 

use RealVNC
http://www.realvnc.com/ (didn't find link on main page)

Install and run VNC service on the computer you want to connect to. You connect to the machine in question by ip, asks for a password, take control of the computer.

 

Although I am still working out the kinks, my post was buried deep. I just wanted to thank you guys for your help, you guys are fantastic! Especially you JerkyKing.


Thanks!!!

Lev

 

You can also use XP's Terminal Services for Remote Desktop, which will not connect to the current user's session, but it will connect to a new desktop so you can perform maintainance on the machine. This could be handy for quick remote maintainance, but is useless for demonstrating to a user how to fix a particular problem.

For that, VNC works great. Personally I prefer TightVNC as I find it to be faster, however there are loads of different kinds out there (Real, Ultra to name but two).