Remote Assistance Shortcuts

If you want to call Remote Assistance from another program like a helpdesk web application, you have to do a couple tricks. I found out about these links by using SysInternals ProcMon and performing the tasks I wanted to copy. I then had to look through the information for the needle in the haystack.

Here is the generic starting of Remote Assistance on Windows XP (you will need to fill in the computername at a web form):

C:\windows\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\HelpCtr.exe -FromHCP -url "hcp://CN=Microsoft%20Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote%20Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/unsolicitedrcui.htm"

Here is the SMS 2003 call that sends a computer name variable to the command line (This doesn't work unless you have SMS 2003 installed or copy the SMSUnsolicitedRCUI.htm to the correct PCHealth folder)

C:\WINDOWS\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\helpctr.exe -FromStartHelp -url hcp://CN=Microsoft%20Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote%20Assistance/Escalation/unsolicited/SMSUnsolicitedRCUI.htm -ExtraArgument "NOVICECOMPUTER=_ComputerName_&NOVICEUSERID="""

Where _ComputerName_ = NetBios name of the remote computer

This is the location of the original hcp files:

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

Let me know if you need a copy of the htm files. I'm pretty sure I would break Microsoft's copyright by posting the html file on this webpage.