How to Set Up Your System for Remote Control (Windows XP)

If you have trouble installing or using Speak Easy Thai, I can help you (free) by temporarily taking over control of your system while you watch.

To do this, you set up an account for me with a password, then you tell Windows that you will allow remote assistance requests. Then you install Windows Live Messenger (if you haven't already). This won't work with Yahoo Messenger or AOL Messenger or any other Messenger.

Then you sign on to Messenger and add me as a contact. Once we are chatting (text or audio or webcam video), you click on the Request Remote Assistance option in Messenger's Actions menu.

Your Messenger then sends a signal to my Messenger saying you need help; my Messenger tells me that; I respond saying I am ready, willing, and able.

Then I am allowed to sign onto your system with the username and password you created.

Then your desktop is replicated on my system. When I move the mouse here, you see the cursor move there. You must sit back and watch, not use the mouse, as we both can't control your system at the same time.

When I am done, I sign off, and you remove my account.

At all times, you can see what I am doing, and if you have a headset (microphone and headphones), we can talk in real time as well. Depending on the speed of your connection and mine and the general state of the Internet, this may proceed smoothly or poorly. In my experience, this works about 75% of the time.

So these are the steps you need to do:

1. In Control Panel, there should be 35 or more icons showing. If not, click on "Switch to Classic View" so you can see the icons.
2. Double-click the User Accounts icon. Create a new account called "Doug Anderson" and give it the password "doug" (lower case). The account must have Administrator access.
3. When done, close the window and run Control Panel again.
4. Double-click on the System icon. This gives some general information about your computer, including its speed and available memory.
5. Click on the Remote tab.
6. In the top section, "Allow Remote Assistance invitations to be sent", make sure the box has a check mark.
7. In the bottom section, "Allow users to connect remotely", make sure the box has a check mark.
8. Click the "Select Remote Users" button and add me with the identical spelling as the user account you created: "Doug Anderson".
9. When done, click the OK button to close the System window.
10. There are now 3 versions of Microsoft's Messenger program. XP comes with Windows Messenger, but remote assistance won't work with that version. There is another version called MSN Messenger, and that has been replaced with Windows Live Messenger. If you don't have that one, you need to download it (free) from Microsoft's Download Center and install it. After installation, you need to create an account (such as myname@hotmail.com and sign onto Messenger.
11. Under Contacts in the main Messenger window, click on "Add a Contact" and add me. My Messenger address is DougBrisbane[panties][at]hotmail.com (remove [panties] and change the [at] to the at symbol). I wrote it this way to hinder spam address harvesters.
12. If you are not online, connect to the Internet.
13. After Messenger has signed on, a request will be sent to me to allow you to contact me. After I respond, you will see me in your list of contacts with a green icon if I am online. Since we are in different time zones, this might not happen immediately. I am online about 18 hours a day, and am in Eastern Time Zone (Ottawa, Canada).
14. When we are both online, we can chat with text, audio, or webcam video; if you have a slow connection, or if the Internet is acting up, the video may work poorly or not at all. If that is the case, the remote assistance won't work either. Wait for a better day. You can't run video and remote assistance at the same time, as each is a bandwidth hog. I have cable Internet, which gives a reasonably fast download speed, but my upload speed is slightly better than dismal.
15. To request help, you click on Actions in the main Messenger window, then Request Remote Assistance, then click on my name.