Providing Remote Assistance from Vista to XP

[scorpionleather]

I'm puzzled about something that should be really simple. I'm trying to
provide Remote Assistance to someone who has Windows XP, and my PC is
running Vista x64, but after making a connection I get a message saying that
the other person is away from the computer and did not respond. This
message is wrong, because the prompt never pops up on the other end. When I
try connecting from the same network using my laptop which is running
Windows XP, I am able to successfully connect and control their desktop.

While searching the web I read conflicting things. On the one hand some
people say to tweak the Vista auto-tuning setting. That doesn't do anything
to fix it. On the other hand, another message says that remote assistance
from Vista to XP is not possible. Well if it was not possible then why
doesn't Microsoft pop up an error message that says it's attempting to
connect to an incompatible operating system? Why instead is there an error
message saying that the person didn't respond? Seems like a major bug to
me.

I have ruled out things like the firewall by disabling it entirely. The
same NOD32 antivirus is running on the XP laptop that is working fine for
remote assistance. These computers are on the same network behind the same
Linksys router so it's not because of the network. Scientifically ruling
out possible causes by comparing the XP and Vista computers appears to point
to a bug.

Maybe my question is real basic - is it even possible to do remote
assistance from Vista to XP?

Or do we need to wait for some kind of service pack or hotfix?

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Yes, you should be able to do RA from Vista to XP, but you wouldn't be able
to do it the other way around. From what you've stated, the XP machine is
currently not acknowledging the request from the Vista system. Is this Vista
system able to connect to that machine otherwise, like accessing network
shares?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[scorpionleather]

The other machine is at someone else's house behind a router so it is not
set up to access network drive shares across the Internet. I can say
however that I came across the same problem on discussion forum postings,
whereby people said the same thing happened to them - when attempting to
connect from Vista to XP, the a message pops up saying that the novice is
not responding, but the novice never gets any dialogue.

When I try XP to XP it works right away, same networks, same routers.

 

[scorpionleather]

The other posts on the web also appear without a solution.

I have come to the conlcusion, therefore, that this is a Microsoft bug and
it's not high priority to fix it in an update. Just a guess: Microsoft
program managers might be thinking, why fix functionality that would let a
Vista user assist an XP user when we want them to upgrade from XP to Vista
rather than have an expert help them fix it up and keep it around forever.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Well, I can tell you that I am able to do it without doing anything special
so whatever the issue is, it's more likely specific to the system's
configuration.

Can they ping the router? Does it respond?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[scorpionleather]

Pinging public WAN IPs works OK. There's something about the Vista/XP
interaction. My configuration is pretty plain. This further reminds me
that Vista networking is half-baked. Why so many other people posting about
this exact same problem? It's not just me, not just my configuration.

 

[Rick Rogers]

I think in the past two years I've only seen this issue crop up once before,
and it turned out to that port forwarding in the router wasn't enabled. From
what you've stated, I'm assuming that's not the issue as you are able to
connect using an XP machine. You may want to take this up in a networking
group, as they're more familiar with Vista networking protocols than I am:

news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.vista.networking_sharing

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[scorpionleather]

Rick thanks for the pointer to the networking newsgroup. Port forwarding is
not required for Remote Assistance, you might be thinking about Remote
Desktop in that case. I searched Google for a solution to my problem and I
found dozens of posts with people running into the exact same thing. So
although you may not have come across this personally very often, there are
plenty of people out there who cannot remotely assist XP users if the helper
is running on Vista.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Port forwarding is required if the helper is using an RA invite file from
email. Also, that RA file must have the router's external IP to work, not
the system's local IP (easy to edit with any text editor).

I did search google prior to my earlier response. The first 9 of 10 matches
were copies of our conversation pasted to various forums that slurp from
this newsgroup. Makes it appear like it's more widespread than it actually
is.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[scorpionleather]

I fixed this by using TeamViewer instead of the built-in Remote Assistance.
It works 1,000 times better than Windows Remote Assistance junk. It is MUCH
faster too.

 

[Gordon]

I fixed this by using TeamViewer instead of the built-in Remote Assistance.
It works 1,000 times better than Windows Remote Assistance junk. It is
MUCH faster too.

Fixed what? Please QUOTE the post you are replying to. AFAIK Windows Mail
does that automatically - you must have deleted the quoted text before
posting.

Thank you.

 

[James Matthews]

The new windows 7 will have something better then that. it will enable you
to do that without haveing to have an internet connection