Vinculación a proceso

Your help desk personnel will tell you that often the best way to help a user is to go to the user’s workstation (or send someone else). Sometimes the problem is just too complicated to walk a user through the solution, and sometimes the user needs detailed instructions that would take forever if you have to wait for the user to find the appropriate dialogs or menu options. Remote Assistance provides a way to work on a remote user’s computer without leaving your own desk. Remote Assistance works in either of two ways:

■ A novice user requests help from an experienced user.

■ An experienced user provides help to a novice user without receiving a request for help.

When a support person connects to a user’s machine with Remote Assistance, the support person can view the user’s screen and even use his own mouse and keyboard to control the user’s computer. To add to all of this convenience, Remote Assistance provides a chat feature and a file exchange function. To use Remote Assistance, the following criteria must be met:

■ The computers must be running either Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP.

■ The computers must be connected over a LAN or the Internet. Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile

This means your support personnel who are working on Windows XP workstations don’t have to go to a Windows Server 2003 computer to provide assistance to users.

Requesting Help A user working at a computer running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP can request help from another user running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP. Remote Assistance requests are enabled by default in Windows XP, so any users running Windows XP can request assistance from any experienced user running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP. On computers running Windows Server 2003, you must enable the Remote Assistance feature in order to request help.

A group policy is available for enabling and disabling requests for Remote Assistance, on both the domain/OU level and on the local Windows Server 2003/Windows XP computer. You can find the policy at Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\ System\Remote Assistance.

To open the local group policy editor, choose Start | Run and typegpedit.msc.

If the group policy is not configured, you can enable or disable the feature in the System Properties dialog (right-click My Computer and choose Properties). Move to the Remote tab and select the option Turn on Remote Assistance and allow invitations to be sent from this computer. Click Advanced to open the Remote Assistance Settings dialog, in which you can do the following:

■ Enable or disable the remote control feature.

If the group policy is enabled or disabled, instead of Not Configured, it takes precedence over the settings in the System Properties dialog.

To request help, take the following steps: 1. Click Start and choose Help and Support.

2. In the right pane, click Remote Assistance, which is under Ask for Assistance in Windows XP, and under Support Tasks in Windows Server 2003.

3. Click Invite someone to help you.

The system opens Outlook Express or Outlook, depending on which application is the default e-mail program, to send the request. The requesting user enters the recipient’s e-mail address, or opens the address book to select the recipient.

If you’re not using Outlook or Outlook Express, the process fails. This feature doesn’t work with any other e-mail software, including the popular Eudora.

If both users are working at computers running Windows XP, and both users are also signed in to Windows Messenger, the requesting user can use an instant message, instead of e-mail, to request help.

Once the Remote Assistance connection is made, the support person (the invitee) has access to the computer of the user (the inviter). If the user gives permission, the support person can take control of the user’s computer, and perform any task that the user could perform. (Not only must the user specifically give permission, but group policies, or the settings in the System Properties dialog, must support the “take control” feature.)

Offering Help Without an Invitation A user doesn’t have to go through all the steps in the GUI to request help—she can pick up a telephone (or yell down the hallway) to contact your help desk. Then, the support person can directly connect to the user’s computer with the Remote Assistance feature. In fact, the support person can use this direct connection feature to connect to a computer even if no request (e-mail or verbal) for assistance exists. Because accessing another computer can be a risky activity, the process fails unless you’ve enabled the feature with a group policy.

The group policy is called Offer Remote Assistance, and you can enable it on a local computer by opening the local GPE (entergpedit.mscin the Run dialog) and expanding the console pane to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\ Remote Assistance.

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Complete Reference/ Windows Ser ver 2003: TCR / Ivens / 219484-7 / Chapter 1 Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile

Specify whether the remote user can take control of the computer or merely view the screen. Then click Show, and add the names of groups or users who can access the computer with Remote Assistance. Use the formatDomain\UserNameorDomain\ GroupName.

Offer Remote Assistance doesn’t work unless the Solicited Remote Assistance policy is also enabled.

Even with the policy enabled, when a support person attempts to connect to a user’s computer, the user must give explicit permission in order to complete the connection. The support person takes the following steps to establish a Remote Assistance connection:

1. Click Start and then click Help and Support. 2. In the Support Tasks section, click Tools.

4. Click Offer Remote Assistance.

5. Enter the name, or IP address, of the target computer, and click Connect.

No Browse button exists, so you must know the computer name or IP address.