Remote Assistance
Default OU Setup
When your OU was created in the WolfTech Active Directory Domain, it was pre-setup to be able to do Remote Assistance. The following were created for you:
- $DEPT-Enable Remote Assistance – Putting computers in this group enables Unsolicited Remote Assistance on member computers.
- $DEPT-Remote Assistants – Members of this group are permitted to provide Unsolicited Remote Assistance to computers which have the following GPO applied.
- $DEPT-Enable Remote Assistance – This Group Policy is linked at the $DEPT OU and filtered on the $DEPT-Enable Remote Assistance group. This GPO enables Unsolicited Remote Assistance on all members of this group, creates a firewall rule, and specifies the $DEPT-Remote Assistants group as the group capable of doing Unsolicited Remote Assistance.
Summary: Put your .admin account in “$DEPT-Remote Assistants” and your client computers in “$DEPT-Enable Remote Assistance” and you should be good to go.
XP vs. Win7 Remote Assistance
On Windows XP, the HelpAssistant local account is used for Remote Assistance and needs to be in the local Users and Remote Desktop Users groups.
On Windows 7, the “User Account Control: Allow UIAccess applications to prompt for elevation without using the secure desktop” User Rights Assignment setting is needed for allowing the Remote Assistant to run processes elevated.
Offer Unsolicited Remote Assistance at the command line:
XP:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /NETONLY /user:wolftech\$userid.admin "%windir%\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\helpctr /url hcp://CN=Microsoft%20Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote%20Assistance/ Escalation/Unsolicited/unsolicitedrcui.htm"
Vista/Win7 (within the admin cmd prompt):
msra.exe /expert /offerRA $computer