Offer Remote Assistance

[SYTEK]

On a corporate network how when offering remote assistance do you guys get the Machine name or IP address quickly from the user.

I have around 200 PC's on a network and when one rings with a problem i want to be able to offer remote assistance allowing them to see what i am doing. It takes an age to find the unique IP or Machine Name.

Thanks in anticipation.

 

[Guest_imported]

I have this same problem, but in a non-commercial, helping my friends who dial in setting.

I tell them to go here:

http://www.whatismyip.com

 

[Jsd02]

open Command Prompt, type there "ipconfig", you'll see IP, mask & gateway

 

[SYTEK]

Because its in a commercial environment we do not allow the user the Run Prompt. I pondered the possibility of setting the desktop to be a web page that consisted of displaying the detail from IPCONFIG and other things local. Before going down this route i thought i would give you guys a whirl at answering it.

 

[hads]

How about using the host name? Then you could just get them to right click my computer and tell you the host name.
01101000011000010110010001110011

 

[wolluf]

You could try giving them this utility

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/existing/wntipcfg-o.asp

(winipcfg for NT based windows - ie GUI giving IP info)

 

[tlcscousin]

Not much help but you could record each computers name and then it is a matter of looking through DHCP to find that IP address.

 

[tlcscousin]

Just a thought you disabled the run command but did you remove command prompt from the start programs menu? If not then a simple ipconfig /all
Also a ctrl+alt+del and file new task will bring the run box
they can then input cmd to bring up command prompt.

 

[pcs800]

I'm going with wolluf on this one. Get the wntipcfg utility. It works great. and with a shortcut somewhere, it takes all of 2 seconds to get the ip and stuff from any pc.

 

[tlcscousin]

The only problem I see there is according to that link, it is run from the run command which he states has been removed from the clients through group policy.Putting the run command back would of course solve the problem but if that was done then the other prgram would not be needed. If the computers can even have a label installed on the machine giving the netbios name then the user could give that name to the IT departement and a look through the DHCP leases would show the IP address.

 

[TheClueless]

I just ask the user. If you have a decent naming convention they will usually know the name of their computer after the first couple of calls. For Windows NT have them right click network neighborhood and choose properties. For Win2K have them right click the My Computer Icon select properties and select the Network Identification Tab. Once I have the name I just do a ping or NSlookup.

The Clueless

 

[tlcscousin]

If they can access the network, create a batch file I called mine IP.bat put it in a shared folder, have the user browse to it and double click the batch file.
This one will work I wrote it in notepad and saved it as IP.bat, the only thing with mine is the user has to close it out, this because of the pause, otherwise it runs and exits with no time out so the user gets to see it.

REM This will show users computers IP address
cdipconfig /all
pause

 

[tlcscousin]

If you add end to the bat file after the pause it will prompt the user to hit any key and will then exit.

 

[SYTEK]

Just to address a few of these points.

The Machine name is the Asset tag from within the financial Ledger to keep track of the asset this is a code that is not only difficult to remember but is also random. The turnover of staff means it is to time consuming to call the machine after the person so we put the User identification in the machine description. When using Offer Remote Assistance it doesn't show the mach9ine description and also doesn't allow you to browse from within the program thus we have to browse the network idependantly then having hopefully found the right machine use this within ORA(OFFER REMOTE ASSISTANCE). This sometime because of new users, high staff turnover and people sitting at different desks means that quite often we get mis-communicated detail and thus waste time trying to fix issues on machines they not at!

Also,

No CMD prompt window is available there all locked down.

creating batch files and using the likes of IPCONFIG.EXE had already been explored but, it is complicated for the users and new users get it wrong and have to be trained up again. What I was after is an all encompassing and professional solution that didn't have that quirky IT flavour to the solution. Since posting this thread I have now got a web page on our intranet that displays the IP address of the local client then through the domain profile I have forced active desktop on then placed that page on the desktop through the profile and select the option to disallow users from moving or resizing the active desktop web page. This I feel is quite a sexy solution.

 

[SYTEK]

Also whoever stated putting a sticker on the screen I would suggest is a little to pragmatic!

 

[hads]

Groovy solution.
01101000011000010110010001110011