Of all the Vista technologies, Remote Assitance (RA) SHOULD be one of the
Vista technologies which is so simple to use and troubleshoot that even my
Gandmother can use it. In fact, I have 2 Grandmothers, a Father, and a
Stepfather who would benefit greatly from RA and who are all quite computer
illterate. Microsoft's ability to offer them a vomputer which even they can
use has always been one of Microsoft's strong points. However, Of all the
people in my family who I have TRIED to help with RA, only one of them has
been successful.
In every other case (5 people who I've tried to help remotely), the exact
same thing happens ...
1. I ask them to send me a RA request using Live Messenger. This is one of
the areas I give Microsoft big points. It's soooo much easier in Vista.
It's been easy in Live Messenger/MSN Messenger for a while but now it's easy
in Vista using "Help and Support".
2. I accept and they create a password for our session. Also, another good
improvement over previous versions. In most of these cases I'm citing, we're
Vista to Vista.
3. Here's where it all falls apart. On their end it is waiting for a
connection. On my end, the RA software runs and attempts to connect. But it
fails to connect and suggests that they may have closed RA.
Now, every one of them has either Cable or DSL internet service and a single
router. They are all wired directly to their router and their router wired
directly to their cable/dsl modem. Very simpel setup. But as far as I can
tell, Microsoft provides me no way whatsoever to determine the problem.
Their router could be blocking the necessary inbound port. Their Windows
firewall could be blocking the app or the port. The really sad thing is that
I have a freeware app that I downloaded for file sharing and it also needs
inbound traffic and it has far better analysis capabilities than Vista's RA.
It will tell me whether or not my Windows Firewall is blocking and it will
tell me if the port is open all the way through, or justopen on my router, or
blocked. That's the most basic of troubleshooting and RA should absoletely
have it.
Think about it. I'm the person they're coming to for support, so you can
assume that I at least know something about computers. When they connection
fails on my end and times out on their end, why not give them the option of
automatically troubleshooting? You could have it check their Windows
Firewall, check to see if the required port is open, check to see if the
required port is open on their router. then you could present them with a
diagnostic report and offer them the ability to send it to me through the
same channel they sent me the RA ticket. The report would contain their
public and private IP addresses so that I could run some additional tests,
which I would do manaully. But at least I would know where to look. And if
the problem was found on their end in the Windows firewall, then RA should
offer to fix it immediately and try again.
But none of that is there. So what happens is I spend 3 - 4 hours helping
someone who doesn't really know what system tray is, how to find a menu, or
what I mean when I say "now minimize that application." I spend an insane
amount of time helping them locate a single file on their hard drive because
they don't understand how to use Windows Explorer comfortably. And all of
this because I have no good built-in option for helping them.
Of course, I'm not that stupid. My company uses Live Meeting and I usualy
resort to that instead of RA. But it just makes me angry every time I try to
use it falls down on the same simple problem. I have also fixed some of
their routers but then the inevitable "reset your router" request comes at
some point from their local ISP and blows that all away. Anyway, I
absolutely see it as Microsoft's responsibiilty to ensure that a technology
designed to be used by someone so helpless for the specific purpuse of
seeking help be designed well enough to give them a fighting chance of
getting that help. I just don't see that here. So please fix it.
Thanks,
Frank
----------------
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