Remote Assistance is timing out!

[Rich Roller]

HELP! I desparately need to get an XP-pro PC to remote control an
XP-home PC by Monday! (My version of pcAnywhere is too old for XP
so I'm trying MS's built-in Remote Assistance)

On the "novice" PC, I made an invitation file and sent it to the
"expert" PC. Then the expert PC opens the invitation and it tries
to connect.

Mostly I see a black/blank screen. For <1 second I see a logon
pop-up that seems to list the HelpAssistant account on my novice
PC. Then the screen is black/blank again for a long time.

After a long time, maybe 10 mins or more? I see on the expert
PC-side....

Chat: Waiting for an answer...

Pop-up: Remote Assistance - Web Page Dialog
"Remote Assistance cannot connect because the the request timed
out. The novice did not respond within the given time frame."

So is there something I need to set on the the novice/target
(XP-home) side?

It's already set in System to "allow Remote Control". I also
checked that the HelpAssistant account is active and that the
localgroup Users includes "Authenitcated Users" & "Interactive
Users" as per some article.

If someone could solve this today/tomorrow I'd be REALLY
GRATEFUL!!!!

TIA,

Rich

 

[Shenan Stanley]

HELP! I desparately need to get an XP-pro PC to remote control an
XP-home PC by Monday! (My version of pcAnywhere is too old for XP
so I'm trying MS's built-in Remote Assistance)

On the "novice" PC, I made an invitation file and sent it to the
"expert" PC. Then the expert PC opens the invitation and it tries
to connect.

Mostly I see a black/blank screen. For <1 second I see a logon
pop-up that seems to list the HelpAssistant account on my novice
PC. Then the screen is black/blank again for a long time.

After a long time, maybe 10 mins or more? I see on the expert
PC-side....

Chat: Waiting for an answer...

Pop-up: Remote Assistance - Web Page Dialog
"Remote Assistance cannot connect because the the request timed
out. The novice did not respond within the given time frame."

So is there something I need to set on the the novice/target
(XP-home) side?

It's already set in System to "allow Remote Control". I also
checked that the HelpAssistant account is active and that the
localgroup Users includes "Authenitcated Users" & "Interactive
Users" as per some article.

If someone could solve this today/tomorrow I'd be REALLY
GRATEFUL!!!!

Who is on the novice side accepting the request to view the screen?

 

[Sooner Al]

In addition to "Shenan's" comments, I have noticed that disabling the remote PC wallpaper speeds up
the connection process quite a bit, both with Remote Desktop and Remote Assistance. That is done on
the Novice PC (or Remote Desktop host) via a Group Policy on an XP Pro box...

On the host, run 'gpedit.msc' from the command line and look at "Local Computer Policy ->
Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Terminal
Services" for the policy to "Enforce Removal of Remote Desktop Wallpaper".... I am not sure how to
set that on an XP Home box, although there may be a registry entry somewhere that may do it...

If your on a slow speed data link, ie. a dialup ISP for example, sometimes it can take a bit to
render the desktop on the Experts display...

--
Al Jarvi (MS-MVP Windows Networking)

Please post *ALL* questions and replies to the news group for the mutual benefit of all of us...
The MS-MVP Program - http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights...

 

[Rich Roller]

Who is on the novice side accepting the request to view the
screen?
Ah, thanks Shenan, that helped a bit! ;-) I didn't know that
someone on novice side had to accept!

However, once that is done and the connection is made, it says
"Screen View Only" but I never see the novice's screen, all the
then 10 seconds later it says "You have been disconnected form
<the other> computer" on both sides.

So now my questions are:

1. There is no auto-accept option/setting? The connection has to
be manually accepted?

2. What would be causing disconnect so quickly?

3. Why is it "Screen View Only"? (that seems limited, no?)

4. Between connect & disconnect times, all of the options are
grayed out... why?

5. Should I bag Remote Assistance and go w/ a 3rd party solution?

I'm pretty close to... I've already spent too much time
troubleshooting it and it seems sort of primitive compared to
pcAnywhere which I'm familiar with.

I was planning to use pcAny 9.0 which I have but when I went to
install it, it said it wasn't compatible with XP, that it would
break MSGINA so I cancelled the install. I understand that I'd
need pcAny 10.5 or above to be more XP-friendly. Any
thoughts/experience on this?

pcAny 11.x is just a bit expensive, and they don't even offer a
trial version for me to test/confirm. If I were to do this on the
cheap, what would be the next best software? (ultravnc? tightvnc?
realvnc?)

-Rich

 

[Rich Roller]

pcAny 11.x is just a bit expensive, and they don't even offer a

trial version for me to test/confirm. If I were to do this on the
cheap, what would be the next best software? (ultravnc? tightvnc?
realvnc?)

Do any of these have decent logon encryption?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Who is on the novice side accepting the request to view the screen?

Ah, thanks Shenan, that helped a bit! ;-) I didn't know that
someone on novice side had to accept!

However, once that is done and the connection is made, it says
"Screen View Only" but I never see the novice's screen, all the
then 10 seconds later it says "You have been disconnected form
<the other> computer" on both sides.

So now my questions are:

1. There is no auto-accept option/setting? The connection has to
be manually accepted?

2. What would be causing disconnect so quickly?

3. Why is it "Screen View Only"? (that seems limited, no?)

4. Between connect & disconnect times, all of the options are
grayed out... why?

5. Should I bag Remote Assistance and go w/ a 3rd party solution?

I'm pretty close to... I've already spent too much time
troubleshooting it and it seems sort of primitive compared to
pcAnywhere which I'm familiar with.

I was planning to use pcAny 9.0 which I have but when I went to
install it, it said it wasn't compatible with XP, that it would
break MSGINA so I cancelled the install. I understand that I'd
need pcAny 10.5 or above to be more XP-friendly. Any
thoughts/experience on this?

pcAny 11.x is just a bit expensive, and they don't even offer a
trial version for me to test/confirm. If I were to do this on the
cheap, what would be the next best software? (ultravnc? tightvnc?
realvnc?)

1 - 4
There is not really (as far as I know) a "auto-accept mode. XP Home does
not have remote desktop, only remote assistance. Remote assistance, as the
name implies, is for assisting someone on the other side - so the request
has to be accepted manually by someone there. Not only that, but remote
assistance is limited to "view only" until the "expert" asks the "novice"
for control of the screen and the "novice" then has to give that permission
manually and can take it back at any time by simply pressing the ESC key.
There is a timeout (I don't recall the timing exactly) value associated with
accepting/denying any request and if it is not done (on the novice side) in
that amount of time, it is refused.

5
For most people using Windows XP Home I suggest using a third party
application, UltraVNC being the freebie of choice.
http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/index.html

I ( a long time ago) used pcAnywhere almost exclusively.. But then I moved
to VNC, TightVNC and now, if I cannot use Remote Desktop, I use UltraVNC.
The VNC derivatives have always worked decently well and you cannot beat the
price!

 

[Shenan Stanley]

pcAny 11.x is just a bit expensive, and they don't even offer a
trial version for me to test/confirm. If I were to do this on the
cheap, what would be the next best software? (ultravnc? tightvnc?
realvnc?)

Do any of these have decent logon encryption?

From UltraVNC's FAQs:

Does Ultr@VNC provides encryption of the communication ?

No. Not directly. Because we don't want to. But Ultr@VNC features the
DSM Plugin System (Data Stream Modification) and some Strong Encryption DSM
Plugins are already available (see the links page). DSM Plugins are really
easy to configure and use.

 

[Rich Roller]

Thanks Shenan for your thoughtful reply!

I've all but bagged Remote Assistance. And I'm almost with you on
using VNC e.g. Ultr@VNC. But I'm a little bit stuck on the logon
encryption thing and I'm not sure I want to have to get into the
added layer/effort of DSM plug-ins. We'll see.

-Rich