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How to configure Group Policy to allow you to offer Remote Assistance

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Let’s face it, no matter how hard you try, it is sometimes best if you just do it yourself. In the tech support world, we have to often remind ourselves that the talents of our users is not in IT and we need to do more than just talk someone through a problem. Remote Assistance in Windows allows you to both see and interact with the end users’ desktop while they are still logged in.

The standard set up of Remote Assistance is for the user to request assistance. This can be an issue for many users as it adds to the stress of the situation. Configuring your environment to allow you help desk to offer remote assistance will increase the speed of the support while at the same time decreasing the stress of the problem.

To turn on the ability to offer remote assistance, configure this GPO:

Computer Configuration / Policies / Administrative Templates / System / Remote Assistance / Configure Offer Remote Assistance

Set this policy to Enabled.

Scope this GPO to apply to your domain. You may also will want to add your tech support group to the Remote Users Group on each client computers.

To offer Remote Assistance from Windows 8, go to the Start screen.

Type MSRA.exe /offerra. This window appears.

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Type the name or IP address of the client that you want to offer assistance to.

The user receiving the assistance will get a request to approve to assistance.

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Once the user clicks Yes, the remote assistance session is established.

The expert still needs to request control of the session. This allows the end user maintain control of the session.

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To further customize the users remote assistance experience, you can also configure custom messages. This way the user knows that the offer came from company tech support and not some random piece of malware.

Computer Configuration / Policies / Administrative Templates / System / Remote Assistance / Customize Warning Messages

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Once these GPOs are deployed to your clients, they will know the support session came from you.

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