Supporting Users with Remote Assistance

Remote Assistance (RA) in Windows Vista included improvements in connectivity, performance, usability, and security along with feature enhancements that make it even more useful than Remote Assistance in Windows XP was. The Windows 7 operating system builds on these earlier improvements with Easy Connect, a new feature of Remote Assistance that makes it easier than ever for novice users to request help from expert users and for experts to offer help to novices. With increased Group Policy support, command-line scripting capabilities, session logging, bandwidth optimization, and more, Remote Assistance is now an essential tool for enabling enterprises to support users in Help Desk scenarios. This tutorial examines how Remote Assistance works in Windows 7, how to use it to support end users, and how to manage it using Group Policy and scripts.