Remote Assistance
As I mentioned, the Windows XP operating system (and newer) includes a program called Remote Assistance, which is a subset of tools included in the Windows Help Center. Remote Assistance combines text chat, file transfer, remote control, and voice chat into a single interface. In all actuality, it is pretty cool...when it works the way you expect it to.
The idea behind RA is that a "novice" can request user support via email or MSN messenger and the recipient of the help request can connect and assist the user.
My beef with Remote Assistance
My problem with Remote Assistance is that while it is pretty full featured, it doesn't work very well through firewalls and there isn't a built-in way to perform an unsolicited connection for those users that may not be tech-savvy enough to open Remote Assistance in the first place (even if your remote computer is part of your domain and on your LAN).
Tools like Crossloop and Logmein have filled the "Internet support through the firewall" niche quite nicely - so if you are wanting to set up family support over the Internet, I would suggest avoiding the frustration of using RA through routers and firewalled connections and use either one of those two solutions.
However, with all that said, I really think that RA could be the perfect Enterprise support tool if it could be controlled or tweaked at a more granular level by IT administrators and support personnel.Seemingly intended for home audiences, but could be so much more...
By default (and design) the "Expert" had to wait for a help request to come from the "Novice" in order to connect to the remote station and control their desktop. Even then, the Novice would need to allow remote control before the Expert could fully manipulate the user's computer.
A tweak or two with a VBScript...
Now, there are some scripts that allow you to connect to a remote station without requiring the user to request a remote assistance connection, but these still require the user to accept the RA connection from the Expert, and then must click a button to allow control to the Expoert.
So...we need a solution that will allow us to connect to the remote station via RA and not have to worry about the tedious task of getting the user on the other end to allow our connection/control.
A few folks (including yours truly to a small degree) have put together a script which can alleviate the problem of unsolicited Remote Assistance connections within a domain environment.
The ZIP file that I will link to at the end of this article has all the files you need in order to control any workstations that you have administrative privileges on without any prior Remote Assistance solicitation. The only limitations: You cannot control a workstation that is not logged in, and Vista is not currently supported using this VBScript.
Of course, you must have administrative privileges on the computer you are connecting to (you may have GPO's in place that may limit what you can do as far as connecting to a computer's system share, so keep that in mind).
Basically, the script connects to the remote computer and backs up a couple htm fles in the Help Center folder which controls some of the security aspects of the Remote Assistance features (the Help Center is just a super HyperText Application). Then a new set of files are sent over to the remote station - the Help Center application is spawned and a Remote Assistance session is opened. The option to allow control to the "Expert" is automatically selected, and the person on the remote end can take control of the PC, send/receive files, etc. all in a matter of a few seconds.
The script exits after the RA session is ended and the default HTM files from the Help Center are copied back into their original locations.
Remote control with file transfer on the cheap!
For those of you who run your networks on a tight budget, this might be a tool you can use to save a few dollars and take advantage of something that has been there since 2001 and you've not been able to use yet...
Anything else?
Of course, there are some security considerations to think about - read my entry here for details.
Special credit goes to Daniel Grundel and Lewis Roberts for putting 90% of this together - I only tweaked the script to take some variables into consideration. You guys are awesome!
Download
Download the modified Help Center files with the connection VBScript here. Try it out on a few test computers first...!
5 comments:
Or, you could use http://showmypc.com, which comes in two flavors - one that is permission-based, (like Crossloop, except requires NO installation - download to desktop and go...) and another that installs as a service.
@Carputers: True, but this is where the freeware guy and network admin diverge a bit.
Remote Assistance is pretty nice because it is already installed on all Windows XP machines, so it is really useful for those of us who have no way (or desire) to deploy a remote control solution to our computers...
You could try GenControl, it uses a version of TightVNC which is automatically pushed and removed when the session begins and ends.
http://www.gensortium.com/products/gencontrol.html
@anon re: Gencontrol
That seems cool, and I'll have to check it out.
I do have a script that I put together that does something similar with RealVNC (can be modified for TightVNC easily), but the nice UI is good.
Remote Assistance is helpful over something like GenControl (or most any flavor of VNC) because of the built-in file transfer. That alone is worth a bit in my book!
Thanks for the heads-up about GC, I'll be checking into it!
Hi i like this edited version of RA but is there a way to edit the script so that chat dioalog box does not apear?????
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