If you want something done right, do it yourself. If you are a administrator or a PC technician of some sort, you'll know exactly what I mean. No matter how hard you teach users how to use a computer, there are many times when they just can't seem to accomplish a task whether that may be configuring a program to work correctly or fixing a computer problem. That is where you, the problem solver, step in to take over. With the Windows Remote Assistance feature, you can easily and remotely connect to a user's computer and take control of it. By doing so, rather than explaining over the phone or over email on the exact steps to take to remedy the situation, you can just do it yourself and in the process actually show the other user how it's done so they can do it themselves when the problem pops up again in the future.
Why Use Windows Remote Assistance?
Let's face it. We can only do so much for others. As a general PC technician or administrator, it's not that we don't want to help the person in need but it's just that sometimes we don't have the time or the means to actually travel the distance everytime their computer is behaving strangely. If the friend or family member asking for help lives in a totally different state or country, would you really want to travel all that way just to fix one computer? With Windows Remote Assistance (WRA), everything can be done without either party even needing to get out of their chair. Whether the person requesting help lives across the street, in a different city, state, country, continent, island or wherever, as long as both parties have an active Internet connection and using Windows 7, WRA will work. Think about all the possibilities. For example, remember that time when you visited your relatives out of state and the first thing they asked you was could you take a look (and eventually fix) at their computer? Well, fortunately for them, they don't have to wait until the next time they see you again to have their computer problems fixed by utilizing WRA. Sure, you'll most likely get more phone calls then usual now that everyone knows they you can remotely help them with their computer problems but isn't that better than having to explain the procedure over the phone? Can you imagine trying to explain to your grandma how to edit the registry by email? Whatever the case may be, WRA will make your life as a technician that much more easier and it will no doubt ease the minds of many novices knowing that distance will never again be a limiting factor between the two of you (as far as computer troubleshooting goes!).
Windows Remote Assistance
WRA by itself is not a new feature or technology by any means. However, in past instances (Windows XP era), it was a little difficult to get it working. One of the main reason for this was due to the emergence of home routers. In order for WRA to work correctly, both parties had to establish a connection with each other and usually over the Internet. That much is obvious. With home router equipment rising in popularity, many users could finally afford to create their own small home network. However, many users don't really understand how these home routers work to protect them from the Internet and one of the technology doing just that was Network Address Translation (NAT) and packet filtering. Rather than being directly connected to the Internet (where your computer was directly plugged into the cable or DSL modem), they now had a physical hardware device siting at the perimeter of their home network playing traffic cop. The home router decides what type of traffic can actually pass through it from the Internet and eventually onto your home network. If you wanted a specific kind of traffic to pass through, such as with WRA, users actually had to manually configure the router for port forwarding and this is wherein the issue lies with using WRA in the past. If you are a frustrated user who needs the help of a friend to connect over WRA to fix the computer problem for you, I doubt you'll want to hear about how to configure port forwarding. Chances are, you'll have no idea what to do or even where to start. If I'm the helper, it can be totally frustrating for me as well trying to explain how to do it over the phone or via email. Long story short, both parties will become more frustrated and will most likely in the end ditch WRA altogether.
With Windows 7, WRA has improved dramatically. One of the biggest change is network connectivity. By using the Windows 7 version of WRA, it can almost traverse any NAT router. This means less connection issues and more time being spent on actually troubleshooting the real computer problem at hand. Getting started with WRA is pretty easy. You have the novice and the expert. Obviously, the novice is the person asking for help and the expert is the one who connects to the novice's computer via a WRA session and troubleshoots the problem. The novice starts the WRA wizard, create an invitation file and then send it over to the expert along with the session's password. The expert downloads the invitation file, opens it and then type in the password to begin the session. This procedure isn't much different when using WRA in Windows XP but once again, the main point here to remember is that the WRA just works when using it under Windows 7!
Using Windows Remote Assistance
In my example here, I will be showing you how to send a invitation file to an expert in which he or she can then use that invitation file to connect over the Internet to your home computer.
1. First of all, we want to make sure that our computer is actually set up correctly to use WRA. Head over to your System Properties, click on the Remote tab and make sure the 'Allow Windows Remote connections to this computer' checkbox is enabled. Having this option enabled allows your firewall to make the necessary adjustments for the connections.
2. Now, as the novice who needs help, we create an invitation file to invite our expert friend into our computer. We do that by starting the Windows Remote Assistance wizard. Head into your Start Menu and type the word 'remote' in the search box. In the search results, you should see the Windows Remote Assistance program at or near the top. To make life easier next time around it's a good idea to create a shortcut to it on your Desktop. Click on the link to start the wizard.
3. In the first screen of the wizard, you are given two options. Since we want to invite someone to help us, we should click on the first option labeled 'Invite you trust to help you'.
Next, we will be given three options on how we would like to invite our expert helper. We can manually create and save the invitation file, use a email client installed on your system (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc) to automatically create an email message with the attached invitation file or to use the Easy Connect feature (which only works if both parties are using Windows 7 systems). The invitation file is an encrypted file that basically instructs the expert on how to connect to your system. As many of you most likely do not have a desktop email client installed, we would want to manually create the invitation file. Therefore, we should select the first option once again. The wizard will then prompt you on where you would like to save the invitation file. For ease of access, just save it on your Desktop with the default file name.
As soon as you create the file, WRA will immediately begin looking for an incoming connection. You will see the WRA window with a password in it. The expert will also need to know this information in order to successfully connect. Do not close this window!
Now, we can go ahead and send the invitation file to our expert. Log in to whatever email service you use (Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, etc) and compose a new email message. Type in the expert's email address and then attach the invitation file to the message. Give the email a friendly subject title. For security issues, it is not recommended that you include the WRA session password in the same email that you have attached the invitation file. It is recommended that you communicate the password via telephone or SMS text message with the expert. At the very least, compose another email message to the expert containing just the password information. Basically, you want to separate the invitation file from the password.
4. Now that we did our part, it is now the expert's turn to do his. He would simply open the email with the attached invitation file, download it, and then open it. He would then need to type in the password.
Once the expert enters the correct password, your screen should then prompt you that the expert user would like to connect to your computer via WRA. Accept the connection.
As soon as you accept the connection request, your computer's theme will immediately change to a more basic theme. At this point, the expert user can now see your entire computer screen and everything that you are doing. The expert can't control your computer yet. He needs to perform a separate request for that. If you just simply wanted to show the expert a problem you are experiencing, you could do so now and he can see everything that is happening on your screen including error messages and whatnot. The expert can then offer his assistance by telling you what to do over the phone (recommended) or you folks can use the chat feature to communicate with each other by text.
Here is a picture of what the expert will see on his screen:
If the expert wants to take control of the novice's computer, he certainly can do so as well. The expert simply hits the Request Control button in his WRA session window and the novice user can then either grant or deny the request.
If the novice grants the request, the expert can then freely control the novice's computer. However, the novice can still see everything that the expert is doing. The novice can also stop the expert's control of the computer at any time by hitting the Stop Sharing button. If the expert initiates a UAC security prompt, his control as well as the view of the WRA session will pause. It is the job of the novice user to actually allow or deny the UAC prompt. Once done so, everything will return back to normal and the expert can then continue to control the computer like before.
5. To end the WRA session at any time, either the expert or the novice can simply close out the WRA program and it ends there. To invite the expert back into the system, you will need to create and send them a new invitation file along with the session's password.
In the End...
A computer problem which once took 10-15 minutes to explain and fix over the phone can now be done within minutes all thanks to WRA. While distance was a huge limiting factor in the past, it has all been erased once again thanks to WRA and the Internet. I really can't stress how beneficial it is to use WRA. It doesn't matter if you are helping out clients or family members. While I understand that it has been a little difficult using the technology in the past, WRA has now been improved and much more easier to implement. Think of all the time that you could save while using this. Think of how awestruck your friends and family members will be when they use this for the first time. Rather than spend minutes after minutes having to listen to a user explain a problem they are experiencing, wouldn't it be much better if they could actually just show you instead? Rather than just telling the user what to do, in which case they might do more harm than good, wouldn't it be great if you could just do it yourself? Well, this is all made possible with WRA and you would be wise to begin using it now if you haven't already.
