MCTS 70-680: Windows 7 Remote Assistance/Desktop

Welcome back to your free Windows 7 training. In this video I will
look at two ways that you can connect up to the desktop of another Windows 7 computer.
The first way is Remote Assistance.
The idea behind Remote Assistance is that the user on the computer asks for help. This
is done by creating an invitation. The invitation can then be saved to a file, e-mail or used
in a system called easy connect. Easy connect does require IP version 6 and a number of
services to be running for it to work. For these reasons it is often easier to use the
file or e-mail method. Once the second party receives the Remote
Assistance invitation they can open and their computer will automatically connect to the
first computer. Once the user allows them access they will be able to see their desktop.
Once connected the user can allow them access to the keyboard and mouse and even open a
chat session with them. To demonstrate Remote Assistance, I will now
switch to two computers running Windows 7 and put them side by side. The computer on
the right will provide Remote Assistance to the computer on the left.
Before you can start using Remote Assistance you need to make sure that it is first configured.
To do this, open the control panel and select the option system and security. From inside
system and security select the option allow remote access.
In order for the computer on the left to receive Remote Assistance the tick box at the top
allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer must be ticked. If you open the advanced
options you can firstly configure whether this computer can be controlled remotely or
not. Permission still needs to be given before
a remote party can control the desktop, however if this setting is not set, they won’t be
able to control the desktop under any circumstances. The next section determines how long the invitation
will last for. This may be minutes, hours or even days. Once the invitation has expired
it will no longer be able to be used. Invitations can be used more than once so it is not uncommon
for people who provide assistance to other users on a regular basis to set this value
quiet high so invitations do not have to be recreated very often.
The last option when enabled will limit the computers that can connect to Windows Vista
or above. There have been some protocol improves in Windows Vista to Remote Assistance so I
would select this option where possible. Remote Assistance is now configured. If I
exit out I can now run Windows Remote Assistance from the start menu .Before another person
can connect to this computer using Remote Assistance you have to have an invitation.
From the wizard select the option invite someone you trust to help you.
On the next screen you will need to determine how the Remote Assistance invitation will
get to the other party. The first option simply lets you save the invitation to a file. The
second option will e-mail the invitation to the other party. The last option will use
easy connect. Remember that easy connect requires IP version 6 to work.
In this example I will select the first option and save the invitation to a file share that
both computers have access to. Now that the invitation has been created Windows will give
you a password. This password needs to be entered in on the other computer.
Now that the invitation has been created I will run Windows Remote Assistance on the
right computer. From the wizard I will select the option help someone who has invited you.
On this screen I will select to open the invitation file that I saved to the file server.
Once open you can see that I have been asked for the password which I will paste from the
clip board. On the left computer there is now a message stating that a Remote Assistance
request has been received and do I want to allow it.
Once I select yes the computer on the right side will be able to see the desktop of the
computer on the left. Notice that when I open Windows explorer on the left screen you can
see it on the right. However if I go to the right computer and attempt to open any programs
I will not be able to. By default Remote Assistance will only allow
the remote party to see the desktop. If they want control over the desktop they need to
select the option at the top request control. When I select this the computer on the left
will get a message saying the computer on the right would like control of the desktop.
Notice also the tick box allow admin to respond to user account control prompts. If this option
is ticked, if the remote party attempts to perform an action that requires user account
control prompt they will be able to accept it, otherwise they will not.
Once I press yes the computer on the right will now be able to open applications on the
computer on the left. Remote Assistance was built under the idea that you would be talking
to the other party over the phone or some sort of teleconferencing. If you do not have
this in place you can always press the chat button to enable a chat session. Remote Assistance
is primary designed for getting help when you need it from another party. If you want
to remote control your computer then Microsoft Offers Remote Desktop. This allows you to
take control of the keyboard and mouse on a remote computer but in the process it will
lock the desktop of the computer. The idea behind Remote Desktop is that allows
you to access anther computer from remote. For example if you are at home and then realise 0:06:22.889,0:06:28.279 you left an important file on the desktop of your computer at work. Using Remote Desktop
you could connect up to the computer at work from home and then e-mail the file to yourself.
If you start using Windows Server, Windows Server allows two Remote Desktop connections
to one server at the same time and does not lock the servers desktop. In Windows 7, Remote
Desktop was designed to allow a user the ability to control their pc but not share the pc with
others. Also by locking the computer when you connect also stops someone using your
computer while you are accessing it. You can only access Windows 7 computers using
Remote Desktop that are running professional, enterprise or ultimate editions. Keep in mind
that the client used to access Remote Desktop can run on any edition of Windows 7. Let’s
have a look at how to configure and used Remote Desktop on Windows 7.
First of all I need to configure this computer to accept Remote Desktop connections. This
is done in the same place as Remote Assistance. Open the control panel, go to system and security
and then select allow remote access. At the bottom are the Remote Desktop settings.
By default Windows will be set to don’t allow connections to this computer. The next
option allows connections from computers that are running older Remote Desktop clients.
This is less secure then the current client included in Windows 7.
If you are only going to be connecting using Windows Vista or Windows 7 you can select
the last option which you the highest level of security. Once you have enabled Remote
Desktop you can next add users that will be able to access this computer by pressing the
select users button. Notice at the top that the administrators
group is allowed access via Remote Desktop by default. I will be using an administrator
account to connect to this computer so I won’t add any users. Once I exit out Remote Desktop
is configure and ready to accept connections. To demonstrate connecting up to Remote Desktop
I will change to anther Windows 7 computer. I will leave this computer in a reduced view
in the top right hand corner so you can see what happens when I connect.
First I will run Remote Desktop connection from the start menu. Next I need to enter
in the computer that I am going to connect to. Notice that under the options I can also
save the connection to the computer for use later.
Once I have everything configured I can press the connect button to start a Remote Desktop
connection to my Windows 7 computer. The first message I will get is asking if I trust this
connection to be made. Next I will be asked which user name and password I will be using
to access the computer. Since I do not have certificates set up on
this network, the Remote Desktop connection can’t verify the remote computers identity.
This is normal so I will press yes. You will notice that now the remote connection will
start up and display the desktop of the other Windows 7 computer. Notice also in the top
right hand corner the other computer desktop has now locked itself. This means that while
you are using Remote Desktop no one will be able to sit in front of the screen of the
other computer and see what is going on. Notice also that the desktop has gone black
and looking glass effects have been disabled. Remote Desktop has disabled these to reduce
the amount of data traveling over the network and thus speed up the responsiveness of Remote
Desktop. Any program that I launch now will be run
on the remote computer. I can also access all the hard disks and any drive connected
to the computer like the DVD drive or USB drives. Once I am finished all I need to do
is log off the connection from the start menu. If I now right click on the Remote Desktop
connection I saved earlier I can select edit and change the properties of the connection.
On the display tab you can change the display that is used in Remote Desktop. Full screen
is the default but you will find that if you start using Remote Desktop to administer servers
you may want to reduce the size of the Remote Desktop so you can display more than one on
the screen and swap between them like you would an application.
Down the bottom you can change the color depth. The higher the color depth the more data that
needs to be transferred over the network. If you are running Remote Desktop over a slow
connection you will notice the difference if you reduce the number of colors.
On the local resources tab you can configure which resources on the local computer will
be available to Remote Desktop. For example you may decide you want to use the local
speakers and a microphone on your computer over the Remote Desktop connection. However
if sound is not required it is best to switch it off as it reduces the speed of your connection.
Down the bottom of the screen you can decide if your local printers will be available to
the remote connection. This means you can open a document on the remote computer and
have it print on your local printer. You can also disable the clipboard. The clipboard
allows you to copy and paste information from your local computer to the remote computer
using Remote Desktop. If you are using a slow link, accidental coping or pasting a large
amount of data via the clipboard can cause your connection to stall while the clipboard
is being transferred over the network. If I select the more button you can also configure
the local drives to be available to the remote computer. This is a good setting to switch
on if you need to copy files between the remote computer and your local computer.
On the experience tab you can optimize what is transfer over the connection. Currently
it is set to low speed broadband and that is why the desktop background and look glass
effects were disabled. It is just a matter of selecting the option that best matches
the speed of your network. In this case I will select the last option LAN since both
these computers are connected to the same local area network.
If I now save the settings and press connect again. A Remote Desktop session will be started
and this time the connection is optimized for LAN use. Once logged in you can see the
desktop background has returned. This concludes Remote Assistance and Remote
Desktop. They are both useful tools. In the next video I will look at other remote management
tools you can use to execute remote commands and configure your computer. For exam questions
and more videos have a look at our web site. I hope you enjoyed the video and thanks for
watching.