Remote Desktop Connection Question

[Sleeper Veteran]

We are planning on rolling out Windows XP in the near future, what I was wanting to know is, is there away of taking control of the users desktop with them having to send you are request for help.

I know that this isnt such a hard thing to do but some of our users really are users..... :wacko:

Connecting via terminal services isnt no good as we don't see what the users are seeing.

We really like the idea of remote assistance but don't think the majority of our user base has the skills to be able to do this.

Thanks

[ThaOddie]

You can use the RDP (remote desktop) to take control of a pc AND see what they are doing!!! Just make a shortcut of Remote Desktop on your pc, go to the properties of the shortcut and go to the "start in:" field. There look for the path "%SystemRoot%\System32\mstsc.exe" , now fill in after .exe /console

%SystemRoot%\System32\mstsc.exe /console

close the properties and now when start remote desktop (with the shortcut) and you take over a PC you will take over their session instaid of starting a new one.

Have fun with it :)

Oh one thing, make sure that you enable remote desktop on your client pc's, else it won't work

[akaladis Veteran]

You can use Microsoft's Remote Desktop :D youll need the username & password of the current user... What i dont like about it, is that the other user gets thrown out to the welcome screen while you work... and then he has to relogin (so in other words, you gotta tell him when you have finished...)

Thats why i use VNC... You have total control of what the user SEES (in Remote Desktop its not 100% same!). Also, with VNC the user can see what YOU are doing to his PC (this can be very nice when you wanna teach them something!)

Have fun! Remote Control on LAN can be fun... Especially when you can Power up other PCs with Wake On LAN :p

/Raptor

[Sleeper Veteran]

so there is no way to do it so that you get the remote assitance window where you can chat with the user etc, without them making a request for assitance?

[Aaron P]

See this link:

How to Use Offer Remote Assistance

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...;308013&sd=tech

I've also found, by accident that you can use the Terminal Services Manager on Windows 2003 (unfortunately not Windows XP) to initiate shadowing a session.

Check out the Group Policies available to you for administering Remote Desktop/Assistance as well.

[Frank]

We use a program called GoverLAN ( http://www.GoverLAN.com ). It is not cheap, but it works well for connecting into people's computers. The only thing it does not include (which I have tried finding many times) is a chat program where you can talk back and forth like in PC Anywhere.