Remote assistance problems

[Michael Taylor]

I'm having some problems with remote assistance. Today a customer requested
remote assistance, which I accepted. The dialog box that says 'connecting to
xxxxxx's computer' was displayed and nothing happened after that.

My PC is running XP Pro and is behind a NAT UPnP enabled ADSL router (ZyXel
Prestige 652-R11). My customers was behind a Dlink DSL-504 NAT UPnP enabled
router.

Later I tried some experiments between my PC and my laptop, both
disconnected from my router and dialled into to different ISP's, both with
ICF enabled on each dial-up account. I was able to perform remote assistance
each way with no problems, although it was very slow being on dial-up.

When I request remote assistance from my laptop (on dial-up) to my desktop
PC behind the router, the laptop is able to take control, but the other way
around it will not work.

I read in knowledge base article 301529 that if both novice and expert are
both behind a NAT that remote assistance won't work if you are using Windows
Messenger, but that it would work if 'Save Invitation as a File' or the
'Send Invitation as an E-mail' method is used when the expert is behind a
NAT.

I'm going to do some testing, but it seems like a strange limitation. I
though perhaps there's a problem with my router, but now I'm not sure!

Mike

 

[Sooner Al]

Its possible you need to use the file invitation or email invitation method and modify the RCTICKET
field in the invitation file...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q300692

--
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...

 

[Michael Taylor]

Hello Al, thanks for your help. I tried the email invitation method. When I
responded remote assistance started and I got as far as before when it said
'connecting to xxxxxxxx's computer......', but this time instead of waiting
for ever, it failed after a minute or so with a message saying 'unable to
determine host name'.

I looked at the RCTICKET value in the invitation file:

RCTICKET="65538,1,192.168.0.2:3389;familypc:3389,*,...............<snip>....
.............

This persons PC was behind a NAT UPnP router. I'm going to do some more
testing tonight using my laptop on dialup to see if there's any difference.

regards
Mike

 

[Sooner Al]

Change the 192.168.0.2 address to the public IP of the router...ie. the IP assigned by their ISP.

--
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...

 

[Bill Sanderson]

The IP in that ticket is a private IP given out by the router, rather than
the public IP of the router. The public IP of the router is likely to be in
the headers of the pop3/smtp email by which you received the file, fwiw.