Remote Assistance for ws admin. 1

[GenTrac]

As a free admin tool I want to setup users in our Domain to use Remote Assistance for remote view/manage. Now that can be done in two ways according to the help, either by MSN or Outlook. The first problem is that we don't use either in our environment. We use Lotus Notes but do have a SMTP server, which I guess I can use. I also guess there is no easy way but to setup a bogus outlook account on every machine which will use the SMTP server to relay the mail internally but to export registry keys? This is a big manual job, has anyone taken this on in the past?

 

[bcastner]

Your default email client is fine:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmb_tol_drft.asp

 

[GenTrac]

Thanks that's the one I forgot about, well so much so that I completely forgot to enable this gpedit setting on the new workstations that were rolled out.
I guess you know where this is heading to I know the setting in the local group policy isn't stored in the registry so I can't enable it that way, we don't use AD so gone is that way.
Anyone know how to enable in gpedit.msc (Computer Config / Admin template / System / Rem Assistance / "Offer remote assistance") without AD or manually going to 300 workstations... Thanks

 

[GenTrac]

Ignore previous : I lied that can be changed in the registry.. Many Thanks

 

[bcastner]

You might find Dan Petri's various articles concerning Remote Assistance helpful:

http://www.petri.co.il/what's_remote_assistanc.htm

Be sure to follow the links as well.

And this discussion:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/remoteassist/intro.mspx

For your question about configuring your workstations, you can push out this registry change:

Locate and click the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\Terminal Server
Double-click the AllowTSConnections value.
NOTE: If this value does not exist, create it as a DWORD value.
Set the AllowTSConnections value to 1 to enable connections, or set it to 0 to deny connections.

Export the key to a .reg file. This is the file you will use in the user logon scripts or send to them by email.

In the user logon scripts, use the command line
regedit /s registry_export.reg or if you sent the file by email ask them to double-click the file itself and accept the registry merge.

 

[GenTrac]

Thanks again...

When I changed my gpedit to see if I can find the values in the registry I track it down in...
(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services)...and not where you mentioned. I am sure this is not a big deal. The only thing I'll investigate is the gpedit values that doesn't update to reflect manual registry entries. This might leave the next guy not knowing what's going on if he sees it's disabled in gp but it works... Sure this is just small talk but as you know it's always good to have both ends covered.

 

[bcastner]

This?
KEY: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Terminal Services
DWORD: Shadow = 0 - No Remote Connection allowed; 1 - Full control with user permission; 2 - Full control without user permission; 3 - View session with user permission; 4 - View session without user permission;

In your original request you asked for the settings controlling the ability of a computer to offer unsolicited remote assitance.

The above key is part of the puzzle to accept the requests, not initiate them.

 

[GenTrac]

Sorry, I only realized after my posting that I was discussing two seperate points but having said that both problems were solved.. Thanks again for the links as well..

 

[bcastner]

Remember there is a service involved as well.
And a DCOM setting that is important.
And alas, a firewall setting.

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/WindowsGeneralWeb/OfferRemoteAssistance.htm

DCOM setting:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=300546

But see also:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=884910

Firewall:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555179

Service. Do a google search on "Remote Desktop Help Session Manager" as it manages and controls Remote Assistance. This obviously you could enable with a registry change push or using sc.exe