5. Configuring Remote Access
The Remote tab in the System Properties dialog box controls
Remote Assistance invitations and Remote Desktop connections. With
Remote Assistance, you can send invitations to support technicians,
enabling them to service your computer remotely. With Remote Desktop,
you can connect remotely to another person’s computer and access its
resources.
5.1. Remote Assistance
When you have a problem with your computer, you can use
Remote Assistance to ask an expert for help. At the office, this is an
easy way to allow a support technician either to guide you through a
configuration task or to solve a problem for you. At home, if you have
a home network, you can use this feature to ask a trusted person to do
the same. You should rarely, if ever, however, ask others to help you
when they are connecting over the Internet.
Remote Assistance is enabled by default. You can configure
Remote Assistance by following these steps:
Select Control Panel→System and Security→System.
On the System page, click Remote Settings in the left pane.
This opens the System Properties dialog box to the Remote tab, as
shown in Figure 12.
To disable Remote Assistance, clear the “Allow Remote
Assistance connections to this computer” checkbox, and then click
OK. Skip the remaining steps.
To enable Remote Assistance, check the “Allow Remote
Assistance connections to this computer” checkbox.
Click Advanced. This displays the Remote Assistance Settings
dialog box shown in Figure 13.
To allow assistants to view and control the computer, select
the “Allow this computer to be controlled remotely” checkbox. To
provide view-only access to the computer, clear this
checkbox.
By default, Remote Assistance invitations are valid for six
hours and then expire. The helper must initiate a Remote
Assistance session within this time limit. As necessary, use the
Invitations options to set a different time limit.
Because Windows 7 offers improved security and enhanced
management, you might want to create invitations that only
computers running Windows Vista or later can answer. If so, select
the related checkbox.
Click OK to save your settings.
5.2. Remote Desktop access
Remote Desktop is a feature you can use to connect to
your home computer when you are at work or to your work computer when
you are at home. Unlike Remote Assistance, this feature is not
designed to allow someone to use a computer locally while the computer
is being access remotely. If someone is currently logged on to the
desktop locally and then you try to log on remotely, the local desktop
locks automatically and the remote user can then access all of the
currently running applications just as if he or she were sitting at
the keyboard. If no one is logged on locally and you try to log on
remotely, Windows creates a new user session and you are then able to
work with the computer remotely just as if you were sitting at the
keyboard.
Remote Desktop is not enabled by default. You can configure
Remote Desktop access by completing these steps:
Select Control Panel→System and Security→System.
On the System page, click Remote Settings in the left pane.
This opens the System Properties dialog box to the Remote
tab.
To disable Remote Desktop, select “Don’t allow connections
to this computer” and then click OK. Skip the remaining
steps.
To enable Remote Desktop, you can select “Allow connections
from computers running any version of Remote Desktop” to allow
connections from any version of Windows, or you can select “Allow
connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with
network level authentication” to allow connections only from
Windows Vista or later computers (and computers with secure
network authentication).
By default, only users who have administrator accounts on
your computer can connect remotely to your computer. You can
manage access for other users using the following
techniques:
To allow users with standard user accounts to connect
remotely to your computer, click “Select users.” In the Remote
Desktop Users dialog box, shown in Figure 14, click Add. Use
the Select User or Group dialog box to specify the user or
group who should be granted remote desktop access and then
click OK.
To revoke remote access permissions for a user account,
click “Select users.” In the Remote Desktop Users dialog box,
select the account to remove and then click Remove.
Click OK to save your settings.
