"Remote Assistance" allows you to invite a trusted expert to connect to your PC over the Internet to help with problems you may be having. The expert can (with your permission) take control of your mouse and keyboard to operate your machine remotely, allowing accurate diagnosis of problems. You can end the session at any time.
This has real benefits: you can often get "hands-on" expert help very quickly (often outside normal working hours) and many problems can be fixed very quickly, reducing costs dramatically.
This Guide Note explains how you can invite WalthamSoft to help you this way. Sessions are chargeable in 20-minute blocks, but this can work out significantly less expensive than a home visit, especially for smaller problems. All you need is an Internet connection and an email account.
To set up a Remote Assistance session, you should call first to check availability and current charges.
All versions of Windows XP and Vista have "Remote Assistance" built-in, so there's no need to install anything.
You'll need to be at your computer during the connection session. However, XP "Professional" and Vista "Business" and "Ultimate" editions also have Remote Desktop which, when correctly set up, can allow us to connect to your PC when you can't be there. Ask if you'd like more details about this.
Alternatively, we can easily install VNC on any version of Windows, and on the Mac. VNC is a particularly good choice if modem/firewall problems are blocking connections. If you wish, VNC can sometimes be configured to allow us to connect when you're away from your machine (this is easily disabled!).
There are other options (eg. PC-Anywhere). Contact us if you'd like to discuss these possibilities.