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Forcing Remote Assistance

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11 replies

by jon pratt

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Does anybody know a registry tweak to enable a force of remote assistance for Windows XP. The best I've been able to do is "Offer Remote Assistance", which simply won't due for my organization since it requires the user to accept the remote assistance.

11 replies

by jon pratt

I appreciate you responding Joseph, however, I've already discovered how to configure the "offer remote assistance" GP. Unfortunately, for my circumstances, I need to be able to force the remote assistance without the user accepting the session("offer remote assistance" still requires the user to click yes to the remote control request which defeats my purposes for using it) What I'm looking for is a way to use Remote Assistance as a transparent remote control of my users. Before I sound toomuch like a network nazi I should add that I am the net admin for a high school district and we are required to have the ability to monitor student activities secretly(although it rarely happens).

by timwalsh

You cannot "force" Remote Assistance. The user must send an invitation. The user must be logged-on when the invitation is replied to (in order to accept a connection). The user must accept the connection. That is how Remote Assistance was designed to work and cannot be changed without rewriting the application.

If you must connect to XP workstations regardless of the circumstances, enable the workstations for Remote Desktop and add the Domain Administrators group to the local Remote Desktop Users group on each computer to which you want to connect. However, any user that has local admin privileges will be able to remove this group if he wants. Remote Desktop works in the same way as Terminal Services in Win2K Server, whereby you log-in to a completely different session than a currently logged-on user. As long as the computer is turned on, you will be able to connect. You won't be able to connect interactively with a logged-on user as you can with Remote Assistance.

by jon pratt

Tim, thanks for responding. As I described to the first respondent I am trying to use Remote Assistance as a transparent remote control program like PCAnywhere, VNC, Radmin, etc. Thus the Remote desktop, as you already pointed out, will not work for that purpose. My experience w/ windows has been that there's almost always a way. For example NT was originally "designed" to require a secure logon, however, there were various registry tweaks and 3rd party tools to circumvent the logon. I suspect that remote assistance has a method for automatically accepting a remote assistance offer. Although it would certainly save my IT dept. some R&D time if we knew as a certainty that we cannot use remote assistance in this way. If you could provide some evidence supporting your claim that Remote Assistance "cannot" be forced I would really appreciate it. I would accept an article or any verifiable source that speaks directly to this issue. If you do possess this information please repost and I'll award the points to you as long as you provide something that definitively proves that the Remote Assistance feature does not have the ability to automatically accept a request. Thanks for participating.

by tomf

I would personally forget about Remote Desktop. I would use VNC. Install it and have it run as a service (this was it runs invisible to the user). Then use group policy so the user cannot access the control panel (so the user cannot stop the service). Now you can connect and the user will never know. (Just don't move the mouse ;)

Hope this helps.

by jon pratt

Thanks for responding. I tend to avoid third-party software when I can, which is why I would like to use remote assistance in place of another third-party solution like VNC. I'm not real hot on VNC(i had a lot of screen refresh problems when i used it) anyway, we currently use Radmin and we're considering PCAnywhere if remote assistance doesn't work. The big advantage of VNC, that I can see, is that it's freeware, however, I work for a non-profit educational facility so software is discounted(acedemic contracts) almost to an absurdity. Thanks for the advice, but my intent on posting this question was really to find a work around for remote assistance.

by tomf

Well you've been told several times you're not gonna get the results using Remote Desktop. You have to use a 3rd party software. I suggested VNC, you say PC Anywhere. If you use PCAnywhere they're gonna see the Icon on the bottom of the screen, my way is invisible and free. I've had zero problems when using VNC over a LAN or a High Speed connection. I've encountered bad screen refresh rates over a slow connection, but thats expected. If my answer is not correct, what answer are you looking for?

by jon pratt

Tom I'll be blunt, your response was the least helpful of all the responses due to the fact that it did not attempt to answer the actual question at all. You'll notice that I didn't ask if someone had a suggestion for alternative remote control software, rather I asked if someone knew a work around for using XP's remote assistance as remote control software. I am quite familiar with many third party solutions as I have already stated. I'm sorry if you liked your answer better than I did, butyou'll notice, if you re-read the question that I posted, that your response doesn't answer a single facet of the original question. I have appreciated each person that responded to my inquiry for their input, but as of yet no one has provided a solution to the issue that I posted. And just to clarify one more time my problem is not that I don't know about, need help with, or in any way require suggestions on third party remote control software.

by tomf

Ok, first of all what you what to be done, CANNOT BE DONE! Accept that. Now what is the next step? Hmmm, maybe a work-around solution? Which I provided, IF you followed my instructions then you would have your solution. Is it using Remote Desktop? NO! Does it work? YES. Is your problem solved? YES.

I'll never understand you people, you ask for help then reject any workable answer with an attitude. If you didn't want help then don't ask!

by jon pratt

Well this thread is going nowhere. Tom, I cannot think of a more succinct way of explaining my situation to you than I have already done. Since this thread is going nowhere I am simply going to close it. Good luck with your generalizations about "us people", I'm sure that it's going to take you far in life.

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