Improving Remote Assistance Performance

You might shudder at the thought of accessing another desktop over a dial-up connection. Surprisingly, the performance can be quite usable. You wouldn't want to use this sort of connection for everyday work, but for troubleshooting, it's good enough.

You can maximize Remote Assistance performance over a slow link by observing these guidelines:

• If possible, use Windows Vista or Windows 7 for both the novice and expert. Its version of Remote Assistance incorporates a number of performance enhancements compared to the version included in Windows XP, but most of these improvements are effective only when both computers are running Windows Vista or Windows 7.
• Close any unnecessary applications on the novice machine.
• Don't let the novice move the mouse on the novice machine, if possible, when the expert is in control of the screen.
• Reduce the visual complexity of the novice machine as much as possible. Reduce the display resolution to 800 by 600 and use only as many colors as is absolutely necessary. If the novice has a multimonitor setup, disable that for the duration of the Remote Assistance session.
• Turn off desktop animations and other sophisticated visual effects, and avoid opening windows that contain complex graphics unless absolutely necessary.

The last two suggestions can be implemented by using the Settings button on the novice machine. The Bandwith Usage slider has four settings; for details about each setting, move the slider. The slower your connection, the lower you should set this slider.