Windows Live Messenger 8.0 and Remote Assistance

[RV Chris]

A lot of people ask me for help, and I LOVE Remote Assistance so I can
see their screens. BUT - it doesn't work when the person needing help
is behind a NAT ... any kind of router, WiFi hotspot, home network etc.
I've been experiencing this problem for a while and hoped that, maybe
Windows Live had addressed it. So, I upgraded both my computer AND the
person needing help to Windows Live Messenger. I still get the error:
"Remote Assistance connection could not be established because the
remote host name could not be resolved. Please try again"

Is there anything I can do to make this work?

I've already tried every suggestion I could find ... send the request
via email and edit the IP address to the user's public IP (no work),
turn off firewalls (no work).

Thanx
Chris

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Hi,

Remote Assistance is actually a Windows feature, it's just spawned by Messenger and as such,
Messenger upgrades aren't going to address this problem.

If the user is being a NAT with UPnP support, this will work, otherwise it's a no-go. The
majority of home routers support UPnP nowadays, but a lot of times it simply needs to be
turned on in the configuration.

On public WiFi it isn't going to happen though.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2006 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.