Offer Remote Assistance - Permission Denied error

[irbk]

When trying to use "Offer Remote Assistance" I seem to get a very non-informative error of "Permission denied". I've gone to KB 310629 and done all the steps there with no sucess. I've got it to work with a few systems but can't seem to figure out what is causing the "Permission denied" when a system that does work is set up with the same configuration as a system that doesn't work.

Any suggestions?

 

[linney]

Congratulations again Bill, your award was never in doubt, they should have made it a sort of "life membership" to save them the hassle and you the minor anxiety.

"And the OEM pre-install issue is a real one". I agree with you but wonder if it is really in "irbk's" case all of these OEM machines or just some of these OEM machines? Can that be confirmed?

Irbk, do you have any OEM machines that it is actually working on that are still in the factory condition and unchanged by you?

"If the system has been rebuilt or XP wasn't pre-installed, I can get it to work."

On the failing machines, were the file systems NTFS (or converted from FAT32 to NTFS), were the Everyone Permissions mislaid during any conversion?

 

[bcastner]

Linney,

"Can it be confirmed?"

The only way I know how to do it would be use C++, and calling this function:

(From the XP SDK):
Windows_AccountPrivileges - Privileges assigned to an account

AccountName: the name of the user account or group
AccountDomain: the domain of the account named.
AccountSID: string representation of the SID

The following 40 columns are the privileges and rights for Windows. Each column will have one of three values:

0 : Not Present : Account does not have the privilege
1 : Disabled : Account has the privilege, but currently disabled
2 : Enabled : Account has the privilege, and it is enabled

Some of the privileges are only valid for more recent versions of the operating system. A privilege that is invalid for a particular OS should always return a 0 (Not Present) during data collection.

 

[bcastner]

subinacls is not the most exciting command line.
It looks like what should be default registry permissions were set correctly already.

I honestly think a slipstreamed repair reinstall would be the best course for you at this time. You will not lose data or installed software. There may have been some hotfixes applied through Windows Update, but at this point in time the change would be no big deal.

 

[irbk]

Thanks for all your help on this. Unfortunitally, I've run out of time that I can spend on resolving the issue and still have not come to a solution. If it is the security issue of the OEM preinstall, and Microsoft forced Dell to resolve the issue, then on the new systems I will be getting this month, it should work. If this is the case then I may revisit the slipstream idea. However, as I do have 1 system that came with the Dell pre-install that works, I'm not sure if it is the security thing.

I'll keep you posted on new results and thank you all for posting.

 

[bcastner]

Start, Run, gpedit.msc

Expand:
Computer Configuration
Administrative Templates
System
Remote Assistance
Offer Remote Assistance

And add the remote users who are trying to make unsolicited offers of assistance to the computer.

 

[irbk]

Yep, I know that. Would have been unalbe to get the systems that I did get to work with out it.