Offer Remote Assistance

C

churin

Is there anyone using or have used Offer Remote Assistance which is in
'Maintenance' folder in the start-up programs?
 
S

Sooner Al [MVP]

churin said:
Is there anyone using or have used Offer Remote Assistance which is in
'Maintenance' folder in the start-up programs?

This is my experience with the RA "offer" functionality between two Vista
Ultimate boxes in a workgroup environment.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18878570?hilite=

As always, YMMV...

--

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...
 
C

churin

Sooner said:
This is my experience with the RA "offer" functionality between two
Vista Ultimate boxes in a workgroup environment.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18878570?hilite=

As always, YMMV...

Thanks for your response. I have reviewed info at the link but they
appeared to be about computer running Windows XP or Windows 2003 in
domain environment. I wonder if I missed something?

What I want to do is offering unsolicited RA from Windows Vista Ultimate
to other Windows Vista Ultimate. I have no problem doing this by
initiating it from Windows Live Messenger but could not figure out how
to do it using "Offer Remote Assistance" in the "Maintenance" folder of
the startup programs.
 
S

Sooner Al [MVP]

churin said:
Thanks for your response. I have reviewed info at the link but they
appeared to be about computer running Windows XP or Windows 2003 in domain
environment. I wonder if I missed something?

What I want to do is offering unsolicited RA from Windows Vista Ultimate
to other Windows Vista Ultimate. I have no problem doing this by
initiating it from Windows Live Messenger but could not figure out how to
do it using "Offer Remote Assistance" in the "Maintenance" folder of the
startup programs.

I think you better go back and read the whole posting...:)

More information...

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2348732&SiteID=17

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2422938&SiteID=17

--

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...
 
S

Sooner Al [MVP]

Sooner Al said:
I think you better go back and read the whole posting...:)

More information...

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2348732&SiteID=17

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2422938&SiteID=17

--

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...

OK, your talking about "Help and Support". If you open "Help and Support"
you will see an option to "Use -> Remote Assistance to get help from a
friend or offer help" option. Click on that and select the "Offer to help
someone" option. Over a local network (LAN) or through a VPN tunnel you can
use the IP of the computer you want to access via RA. Note that you need to
configure the two group policies I pointed you to in the first reply on each
machine before you can offer help. Obviously Remote Assistance needs to be
enabled on the Novice machine.

By the way "Help and Support" should probably be in the Start Menu instead
of needing to navigate to the Maintenance folder. If its not there you can
right click on Start and select Properties. Next select the Start Menu tab,
then Start Menu then Customize and check the checkbox next to "Help" in the
list of items you want displayed.

Good luck...

--

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...
 
C

churin

Sooner said:
OK, your talking about "Help and Support". If you open "Help and
Support" you will see an option to "Use -> Remote Assistance to get help
from a friend or offer help" option. Click on that and select the "Offer
to help someone" option. Over a local network (LAN) or through a VPN
tunnel you can use the IP of the computer you want to access via RA.
Note that you need to configure the two group policies I pointed you to
in the first reply on each machine before you can offer help. Obviously
Remote Assistance needs to be enabled on the Novice machine.

By the way "Help and Support" should probably be in the Start Menu
instead of needing to navigate to the Maintenance folder. If its not
there you can right click on Start and select Properties. Next select
the Start Menu tab, then Start Menu then Customize and check the
checkbox next to "Help" in the list of items you want displayed.

Good luck...
No, I am NOT talking about "Help and Support". What I am asking about is
"Windows Remote Assistance" short-cut which is in "Maintenance" folder
among the start up programs folders. If I click this short-cut then
there displayed are two options, one of which is "Offer to help
someone". This is going to be unsolicited Remote Assistance offer.

I used unsolicited Remote Assistance or "Offer Remote Assistance" from
WLM but this option has been dropped from WLM with the latest version.
So I would like to use unsolicited RA in an alternate way as above. I
entered the global IP address of my friend's PC but connection never
happened.
 
S

Sooner Al [MVP]

churin said:
No, I am NOT talking about "Help and Support". What I am asking about is
"Windows Remote Assistance" short-cut which is in "Maintenance" folder
among the start up programs folders. If I click this short-cut then there
displayed are two options, one of which is "Offer to help someone". This
is going to be unsolicited Remote Assistance offer.

I used unsolicited Remote Assistance or "Offer Remote Assistance" from WLM
but this option has been dropped from WLM with the latest version. So I
would like to use unsolicited RA in an alternate way as above. I entered
the global IP address of my friend's PC but connection never happened.

Well, I don't have a "Windows Remote Assistance" short cut in the
maintenance folder on my Vista Ultimate machine. I do have a "Help and
Support" short cut in that folder.

Beyond that did you enable the two group policies, ie. Solicited and Offer?

--

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...
 
C

churin

Sooner said:
Well, I don't have a "Windows Remote Assistance" short cut in the
maintenance folder on my Vista Ultimate machine. I do have a "Help and
Support" short cut in that folder.

Beyond that did you enable the two group policies, ie. Solicited and Offer?
That is strange. Then, are you RUNing msra.exe which is buried deep in
the system folder? I checked four other Vista Ultimate boxes and they
all have "Windows Remote Assistance" short cut in the Maintenace folder.

The reference about group policy relating to RA so far I reviewed are
for Windows XP or Windows 2003, but I might have missed something. So, I
will look into it again.
 
S

Sooner Al [MVP]

churin said:
That is strange. Then, are you RUNing msra.exe which is buried deep in the
system folder? I checked four other Vista Ultimate boxes and they all have
"Windows Remote Assistance" short cut in the Maintenace folder.

The reference about group policy relating to RA so far I reviewed are for
Windows XP or Windows 2003, but I might have missed something. So, I will
look into it again.

msra.exe is simply the Remote Assistance executable. You can go to "Start ->
Run" and type msra in the command window and Remote Assistance will start.
If you go to "Start -> Help and Support" and start RA there its the same GUI
that pops up.

The group policies are the same for Vista as they are for XP and W2K3.

--

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...
 
C

churin

Sooner said:
msra.exe is simply the Remote Assistance executable. You can go to
"Start -> Run" and type msra in the command window and Remote Assistance
will start. If you go to "Start -> Help and Support" and start RA there
its the same GUI that pops up.

The group policies are the same for Vista as they are for XP and W2K3.
What I meant was that all Vista boxes I checked have "Windows Remote
Assistance" short cuts as default or the short cut were created
automatically when the Vista were installed.

I understand that the group policy need be properly set for both PCs
involved in RA. If this is the case then, unsolicited RA appears
impracticable since help recipient will unlikely be able to handle
setting group policy oneself. Maybe I should use older version of WLM
which does not require such group policy setting even for unsolicited RA.
 

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