Windows XP Remote Assistance

I occasionally help others through Remote Assistance but I have talked to several people who have Windows XP and can not locate the Remote Assistance on their start menu even though it is enabled in their MyComputer properties. Can anyone tell me where it is or how to enable it on the start menu? On my computer it's located in the Accessories/System Tools folder.

Thanks

 

Well I don't think I made myself clear. I am NOT talking about Remote Desktop. I have had Windows XP Home edition for almost 2 years now and I have accepted over a dozen Remote Assistance requests for help from other computers. I have never had to ask for Remote Assistance. Most of the time all folks did was click on their MSN Messenger and select me for a conversation and select "request remote assistance" on their "Actions" tab in the Messenger. Lately though they have been unable to because for some reason the updates to Windows XP have removed the option of MSN Messenger and it defaults to Windows Messenger. Unfortunately the only Windows Messenger available now is Windows Messenger Live and not one of the folks I know likes it, including myself. In my System Tools folder where I have the Remote Assistance link it also doesn't have MSN Messenger as a choice, only Windows Messenger. But some folks don't even have Remote Assistance in their Accessories/System Tools folder, and that was my original question.

 

I don't have the shortcut in my start menu either so you'll have to check this out. Right click on your remote assistance shortcut and choose properties. Look at the line that says "target" by it and see what the name of the file is that it points too. You should be able to just type that file name into the run box in the start menu and it should start. You could let those people know this and that would be one way they could get it going. If they are computer savvy enough they could create their own shortcut to it in the start menu or you could do it for them when you connect to them.

Another way to access it is to open Help and Support in the start menu and where it says ask for assistance, click on the link that says "invite a friend to connect to your computer with remote assistance ". If the link isn't there, in the search box at the top of the help window, type remote assistance. In the list of things that it finds, click on the link in the list that says remote assistance. It should be the first one in the list. This will open a dialog in the right pane where you can select to invite somebody to help you either by email or using messenger.

 

Hi Steve R Jones

XP Home for example doesn't have RDC....

Maybe it came with SP2, because I seem to have it (XP HE SP2) under "Communications ".

mickzer

 

XP Home has remote desktop but it is limited. It can only be used as a client, not a server. In other words, you can use it to access files on a system that has XP Pro installed on it, but you won't be able to access files on your XP Home computer from another computer regardless of what OS the other computer is running.

 

Yes the Remote Desktop is on mine also but it doesn't work like the XP Pro version because when I click on it I am prompted to enter a computer on the network, so I have to assume that the feature will work if there is a network present.

Also thanks for the suggestion for locating the file to launch Remote Assistance. I guess I had an Alzheimer's moment because if I had spent more time thinking about it I would have figured it out. I have been spending too much time trying to figure out another problem.

 

LOL, I can relate to that. There's been plenty of times in the past where I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out something like this before thinking about the properties thing. I just got lucky and it happened to come to mind right away this time.

I'd like to know why some systems have that link in the start menu and others don't. It seems to me that mine used to have it. I suppose I could have deleted it somewhere along the way but I don't remember doing so. Perhaps this is my Alzheimer's moment.