Remote Assistance connection problem

[HankBar]

I gave my sister a new computer with Vista Home Premium (sp1) over the
Thanksgiving weekend. She is not really into computers and uses it mostly
for email and internet. She has a cable isp (Cox). When I gave her the
machine I expected to be able to help her using Remote Assistance. The
opportunity to do so came up yesterday; I received her email invitation ok
but when I tried to respond I got a message saying that I was unable to
connect to her machine. I live 400 miles away so unfortunately a site visit
is not really possible. I was also unable to ping her computer using the ip
address in the Remote Assistance invitation.

I am running Win XP pro (sp2) and have a DSL isp (Verizon). I was able to
connect to my son's Vista computer.

Any help very much appreciated.

 

[Sooner Al [MVP]]

I gave my sister a new computer with Vista Home Premium (sp1) over the
Thanksgiving weekend. She is not really into computers and uses it
mostly for email and internet. She has a cable isp (Cox). When I gave
her the machine I expected to be able to help her using Remote
Assistance. The opportunity to do so came up yesterday; I received her
email invitation ok but when I tried to respond I got a message saying
that I was unable to connect to her machine. I live 400 miles away so
unfortunately a site visit is not really possible. I was also unable
to ping her computer using the ip address in the Remote Assistance
invitation.

I am running Win XP pro (sp2) and have a DSL isp (Verizon). I was
able to connect to my son's Vista computer.

Any help very much appreciated.

I presume she has enabled Remote Assistance on the laptop? She may need
to manually open TCP Port 3389 on any firewall/router she is behind if
the firewall/router is not UPnP compliant.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301529

I would give TeamViewer a try as an alternative.

http://www.teamviewer.com

--

Al Jarvi (MS-MVP Windows - Desktop User Experience)

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...
How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375

 

[HankBar]

Al, thanks for the (very fast) reply.

I will check to verify that she has Remote Assistance enabled on her
computer (actually a desktop, not a laptop if it matters). When I set up
the computer before I gave it to her I am quite sure I enabled it but I will
verify.

Remote Assistance aside for the moment, any thoughts as to why I was unable
to ping her machine using the ip address from the Remote Assistance
invitation? Any chance that it could be incorrect? I was thinking of using
another method to obtain her address and comparing with the address from RA.

I did not indicate in my initial post that I am behind a router but she is
not.

We are both using Comodo firewall but tried to connect and ping her machine
with firewall disconnected. (obviously only as a test since without a
router and NAT, her machine would be very vulnerable without firewall).
After we can successfully connect using no firewall I guess my next project
will be to get it to work with Comodo.

I took a quick look at the TeamViewer link you sent, I looks very
interesting, will study it more closely

Thanks again
Hank

 

[Sooner Al [MVP]]

Al, thanks for the (very fast) reply.

I will check to verify that she has Remote Assistance enabled on her
computer (actually a desktop, not a laptop if it matters). When I set
up the computer before I gave it to her I am quite sure I enabled it
but I will verify.

Remote Assistance aside for the moment, any thoughts as to why I was
unable to ping her machine using the ip address from the Remote
Assistance invitation? Any chance that it could be incorrect? I was
thinking of using another method to obtain her address and comparing
with the address from RA.

I did not indicate in my initial post that I am behind a router but
she is not.

We are both using Comodo firewall but tried to connect and ping her
machine with firewall disconnected. (obviously only as a test since
without a router and NAT, her machine would be very vulnerable without
firewall). After we can successfully connect using no firewall I guess
my next project will be to get it to work with Comodo.

I took a quick look at the TeamViewer link you sent, I looks very
interesting, will study it more closely

Thanks again
Hank

Yes the IP used by RA may be incorrect. You can check that by opening
the invitation file and inspecting the RCTICKET field. Use Notepad for
example to do that.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300692

--

Al Jarvi (MS-MVP Windows - Desktop User Experience)

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...
How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375

 

[HankBar]

Thanks Al

TeamViewer looks very promising, now all I have to do is figure out how to
locate the file on her machine after I send it to her. At least with this
app it would seem that there will be no firewall problems.

Thanks again
Hank

 

[Gordon]

Thanks Al

TeamViewer looks very promising, now all I have to do is figure out how to
locate the file on her machine after I send it to her. At least with this
app it would seem that there will be no firewall problems.

Get her to save it onto the desktop....

 

[HankBar]

Gordon

Yes, that will probably be the best way. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Blue Max]

Hello Hank,

A lot of us, like you, are having problems with Remote Assistance on a local
network, over the internet, or using Windows Live Messenger. Deceptively,
Microsoft characterizes this as a powerful help feature faithfully waiting
at the fingertips of every novice user and, practically speaking, it really
should be!

However, practical speaking, often proves otherwise. Soon we were reading
technical articles, checking firewalls, opening ports, modifying group
policy, and tweaking the Windows Registry in order to get this "simple"
feature to work - hardly a heaven-sent lifeline as Microsoft advertises.
Unfortunately, in our case, none of this has helped to resolve the problems.

In our opinion, Microsoft needs to publish a straight-forward article, with
very clear steps, which will help the novice user troubleshoot Remote
Assistance in Windows Vista and XP (or between the two). The article needs
to include a clear set of illustrated steps and examples, that when
followed, will insure that Remote Assistance (or Remote Desktop, for that
matter) is properly configured and will operate reliably.

Most articles I find are old articles, often addressing older operating
systems, that are extremely technical for a novice user, that often refer
you to third-party firewall publishers (without always telling you exactly
what to look for), and that often only address one small aspect of the
overall problem. We need a comprehensive approach that promises to address
most, if not all, common problems.

Finally, notice how often others recommend that you simply abandon Microsoft
and look for another third-party product? In my opinion, this happens all
too often with Microsoft utilities or products. Moreover, if Microsoft
includes a feature, it ought to work! Othewise, let the 3rd party
developers have the business to start with and save us the grief. Please
Microsoft, help us get this feature working reliably!

*****************

 

[HankBar]

Blue Max

Couldn't agree more, thanks for your thoughts.

In my case it would appear that TeamViewer will solve my problem (haven't
had a chance to try it yet but after having read several posts and reviews
on a few sites it looks like just what I need) and probably work as well as
or better than Remote Assistance.