Group Policy settings for Unsolicited Remote Assistance in Vista

[Michael]

Hi

I have set the group policy setting for controlling Windows Xp machines and
all is working fine. All works ok and I can connect to XP machines with no
difficulty.
Howver I cannot connect to Windows vista machines when I try to offer remote
assitance. The strange thing is that if I send the user a request for help,
remote assitance works, and even if the user sends me a remote assitance
request via email and I as the admin accept it , remote assistance works.
The message when I try to offer unsolicited remoate assitance is the follwing:
"Your Offer for help could not be sent"

Do you have to correct permissions on the remote computer?

Is the remote computer turned on and connected to the network?

Is there a network problem?

Can someone please help and shed some light on this problem?

Many thanks
Michael

[James Yeomans BSc, MCSE, MCTS]

Do the vista machines have the same group policies applied? Windows
Firewall/Defender spring to mind.
James.
--
James Yeomans, BSc, MCSE, MCTS
Ask me directly at: http://www.justaskjames.co.uk

[Assilem]

Did you EVER get an answer for this??? Ive seen your pleas on several
different forums. I'm stuck as well.

[Mike Stephens]

Unsolicited Remove Assistance Requests no longer work from Windows XP to
Windows Vista client. This is a result from the Help and Support Services
was deprecated in Windows Vista. XP to XP works correctly. However, XP
(Expert) to Vista (Novice) does not work.

--
Mike Stephens
Senior Technical Lead
Enterprise Platforms Support
Windows Server 2008/2003 Directory Services Team

Learn more about Directory Service technologies
visit http://blogs.technet.com/askds

"Assilem" <Ass...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:EA0937F4-0631-458E...@microsoft.com...

[Paul Shapiro]

I'm not sure, but I thought there was a setting for Vista to allow downlevel
client connections. I also thought there was an update for XP to bring
remote assistance up to the Vista version. The difference is that Vista
normally requires authentication before allowing a connection, for better
security, while XP made the connection and then authenticated.

Look on the System Properties, Remote Settings dialog on the Vista box.

"Mike Stephens" <Mi...@support.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:BF5B1110-5F5D-4EA3...@microsoft.com...

[TKLOSE]

MIke,

I'm seeting the same issue.
The problem is Vista SP1 to a Vista SP1 machines does not work when set via
group policy.
Even though the registry settings are set to allow unsolicited remote
assistance, the option in the sytem panel becomes grayed out, with the check
box removed.

I took a step by step approach making absolutely sure the firewall was not
the cause (disabled and/or with remote assistance incoming enabled) and the
permissions were right.

If you don't touch these settings in group policy, the RA works OK.

There is something other going on. The same policy works OK on a XP client.

[TKLOSE]

In followup to this, after some testing I discovered that the same registry
keys for RA are not used in Vista. I don't know why, perhaps there is a
reason.

My workaround:

First: the GP was setting items under
HKLM\Software\policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services
fAllowUnsolicited and fAllowUnsolicitedFullControl Which have NO affect on
the control panel check box or the ability to RA.

Using CSE Registry options, I updated the correct registry keys
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Remote Assistance
fAllowUnsolicited and fAllowUnsolicitedFullControl

I am testing further, but this seems to work.

So, Is this a mistake in the GP definitions???

Please explain.

[TKLOSE]

I'm back with the same problem.
There is some setting in the GP that will deslect and gray out this setting
in the remote panel. I'm sure this is what many others are running into.

Unresolved...still investigating.