Right-click "Remote Assistance" in BigFix

(imported topic written by BenKus)

One of our customers asked about a “right-click remote assistance” for BigFix the same way we do “right-click remote desktop” (see http://support.bigfix.com/bes/misc/customrightclick.html for more details).

Remote Assistance (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/remoteassist/default.mspx) is a Microsoft Technology that allows a help-desk technician to assist an end-user by sharing a view of the desktop, chatting, trading files, etc.

BigFix supports integration using MS Remote Assistance (and MS Remote Desktop) in the

“BigFix Remote Desktop for Windows”

Fixlet site. More info here: http://support.bigfix.com/product/documents/BigFixRemoteDesktopGuide-v1.pdf

Here is how to to enable right-click remote assistance… We will be using the technique described here:

http://zcasper.blogspot.com/2006/01/automating-remote-assistance.html

  1. Subscribe to the “BigFix Remote Desktop for Windows” Fixlet site and activate “Microsoft Remote Service Settings” Analysis

  2. Download and import the .reg file (http://software.bigfix.com/download/bes/misc/rightclick/remoteassistance-rightclick.zip) on your BES Consoles

  3. Download the file here http://zcasper.googlepages.com/RemoteAssistance.htm and put it at “C:\WINDOWS\pchealth\helpctr\Vendors\CN=Microsoft Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US\Remote Assistance\Escalation\Unsolicited\RemoteAssistance.htm”

  4. Now right-click on a computer and you should be able to the remote assistance the computers (I believe you will need to have AD privileges on the system for it to work properly)

Ben

(imported comment written by dgibson91)

If your console is on a Windows Vista machine, you can also use:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\BigFix\Enterprise Console\Settings\ComputerListContextMenuExtensions\remoteassistance

“ShellCommandRelevance”="“msra.exe /offerRA " & ( value of property result whose (name of property of it = “DNS Name” ) of current computer )”

(imported comment written by emock91)

Configuring Right Click Remote Asistance

. Download the file here http://zcasper.googlepages.com/. Download the file here http://zcasper.googlepages.com/RemoteAssistance.htm and put it at site is down.

How do I get a copy of . Download the file here http://zcasper.googlepages.com/RemoteAssistance.htm ?

Thanks

(imported comment written by emock91)

Ha, you have to right click on the Link and download … it works great !!

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Ben, the Remote Assistance right click works great however I’m not familiar with the syntax of the relevance to modify it…

our servers are resolvable by dns name however our workstations are not…

Essentially we are looking for a right click that does the following:

if computer is a (OS TYPE) workstation then use first IP address if it starts with “10.” (we want to exclude all other IPs, exampe 192.168.x.x) else use “DNS name”

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hey mboseck,

The relevance in the link above is:

“C:\windows\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\HelpCtr.exe -url %22hcp://CN=Microsoft Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/RemoteAssistance.htm?” & ( value of property result whose (name of property of it = “DNS Name” ) of current computer ) & “%22”

You can change it (in regedit) to:

“C:\windows\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\HelpCtr.exe -url %22hcp://CN=Microsoft Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/RemoteAssistance.htm?” & ( (if (operating system of it contains “WinXP”) AND (number of ip addresses whose (it as string starts with “10.”) of it = 1) then (ip address whose (it as string starts with “10.”) of it as string) else (value of property result whose (name of property of it = “DNS Name” ) of it)) of current computer) ) & “%22”

I used “WinXP” in my example, but you can change it to another OS…

Ben

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Thanks Ben, really appreciate your help

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

orig: formated for the .reg file:

"“C:\windows\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\HelpCtr.exe -url %22hcp://CN=Microsoft Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/RemoteAssistance.htm?” & ( value of property result whose (name of property of it = “DNS Name” ) of current computer ) & “%22"”

new: formatted for the .reg file:

"“C:\windows\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\HelpCtr.exe -url %22hcp://CN=Microsoft Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/RemoteAssistance.htm?” & ( (if (operating system of it contains “WinXP”) AND (number of ip addresses whose (it as string starts with “10.”) of it = 1) then (ip address whose (it as string starts with “10.”) of it as string) else (value of property result whose (name of property of it = “DNS Name” ) of it)) of current computer) ) & “%22"”

Getting the below error:

“Not all of the selected computers were able to run the selected action.”

any ideas?

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hmmm… try this for troubleshooting:

  1. Import into your registry

  2. Open the presentation debugger (http://support.bigfix.com/cgi-bin/kbdirect.pl?id=508)

  3. Copy the relevance from the registry (it won’t have the escape codes)

  4. Replace ‘current computer’ with ‘bes computer whose (name of it = “”)’

tell me what error you see…

Ben

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

no errors in the presentation debugger (nor if I changed the registry), when I manually replaced ‘current computer’ with my workstation name.

presentation debugger:

“C:\windows\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\HelpCtr.exe -url %22hcp://CN=Microsoft Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/RemoteAssistance.htm?” & ( (if (operating system of it contains “WinXP”) AND (number of ip addresses whose (it as string starts with “10.”) of it = 1) then (ip address whose (it as string starts with “10.”) of it as string) else (value of property result whose (name of property of it = “DNS Name” ) of it)) of bes computer whose (name of it = “MYcomputer01”)) & “%22”

output

C:\windows\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\HelpCtr.exe -url “hcp://CN=Microsoft Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/RemoteAssistance.htm?10.2.55.192”

(imported comment written by BenKus)

That looks proper… Strange… and what happens when you go to your “Start” > “Run” and try to run this command?

Maybe your Windows folder is in a different location?

Ben

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

It works from the start>run…

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

I’ll recreate it one more time to make sure I don’t have a typo.

(imported comment written by jr6591)

Is there a link on how to get Browse to Computer via the Right-Click option. I tried this and it talks about it, but i cannot find where to get it or info on it.

http://support.bigfix.com/bes/misc/customrightclick.html

Thanks

(imported comment written by intrepdmind91)

This link is most definitely down:

http://zcasper.googlepages.com/RemoteAssistance.htm

Can this be uploaded again? When I try downloading the linked file i just receive an htm file with Error 404 text embedded :frowning:

Everything else in this guide works fantastically!

(imported comment written by NoahSalzman)

The right-click options got rolled up into a single task. (We’ll fix the links soon.)

Download and load the “BigFix Console Right-Click Options Installer Task” into your BigFix Console. You can find it here:

http://support.bigfix.com/labs/downloads/

(imported comment written by intrepdmind91)

I have this download installed, and it does indeed enable Remote Desktop (works great!), however Remote Assistance is not a default feature. Is it possible to revisit this topic and help guide us towards enabling Remote Assistance in the right click menu?

I currently have followed the above topic, and gotten Remote Assistance to show up in the right click menu via the registry edit listed above, however the actual option for Remote Assistance is greyed out. I’m thinking that this is because the HTM file that was listed above is no longer available within the given link (link is broken).

Any help would be greatly appreciated because this feature really is quite amazing :slight_smile:

Thanks

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hey guys,

I am not sure why the web page is down, but I am going to post it as an attachment here… Note that this originally came from zcasper.googlepages.com and I will try to contact them to make sure it is OK to keep it here and we can take it down if they want us to…

Remember to right-click save this file to the folder:

“C:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Vendors\CN=Microsoft Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US\Remote Assistance\Escalation\Unsolicited”

Ben

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Intrepdmind,

After you try out the remote assistance, I think people would be interested in hearing how everything is working for you because I know that lots of people are considering using the MS built-in remote assistance, but they wanted to hear about other people’s experiences first…

Ben

(imported comment written by brannonb91)

Can you assist with getting this to work for Windows 7 machines? The right-click option is grayed out. We had to customize one of the tasks to get RDP enabled, but we need Remote Assistance.

Thanks for any help here!