Re: Session terminated

Lori,

Netmeeting is available in all XP versions, but not on Vista. It can be used to make a connection for text, voice, or even desktop sharing. There is not as far as I know a site available to facilitate the connection, but you can still do it with an IP address. Most routers will allow you to forward connections to a particular PC on a home network if it is masking your local LAN IP address. Netmeeting used to do this automagically by leading you through the steps to reconfigure things. I don't know if the auto-thingy works without the MSN server not in the loop. Ip address stuff below.

Wiki has a list or remote control software. Some like ultravnc are free, and some offer free downloads with a trial period. The fact that many of them are releasing Vista compatible versions either means the m$ software still has problems, or in your/our case there are still a lot of Home users that are ignored, or left in a ditch with M$.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Assistance_Software

Netmeeting, if it will work is fastest, or try one of the others mentioned in the wiki link. I will still keep trying to find something that doesn't IMPLY that everything is wonderful in M$ supportland, except that it doesn't work...

Gary

Just in case you or your friend needs a little help (No offense intended), I've added a short addressing blurb here, and at the end of it a link to an intro to TCP/IP. It is a GREAT document for learning the buzzwords we sometime-geeks like to throw around as if we REALLY knew what we were talking about. (He/She who knows the most buzzwords WINS! Those who UNDERSTAND the buzzwords know they need more information...)

To find your IP address and router, start a command prompt and enter
ipconfig[return/enter] and it should respond with something like:
Windows IP Configuration
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2: [I deleted a couple of mine]
Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.31.100.11
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 172.31.100.111
The IP Address is your PC, the Gateway is your router. The mask is used to tell all parties on your local LAN how much of the address is a network and how much is a device address. In the above mask the zero is where the device part of the address can be found-1 to 255 in this case.

My PC's and other devices, are on a router using NAT, like you I assume. My ISP-assigned Internet address is available by logging into my router.
If your cable/DSL modem is configured to perform the PPPoE signon VS the router doing it, or they are both in the same box, you will still be able to find your real Internet IP using the device status or similar page when logged into your router.

I can allow any one of my PCs direct access to/from the internet by placing it in the DMZ, the DMZ contains devices accessible to Internet traffic (NO Router/firewall protection), or I can use port forwarding to allow my PC to talk to someone else as if it was using my ISP assigned address (limited to just the ports and PC I specify). Most routers support these functions and more.

The Default Gateway above is my router's local LAN address (well I modified it for display...). Your local LAN network, if automatically configured by the router installation, could be any of the following private LAN addresses: (Reserved addresses for LOCAL networks-cannot be accessed on the live Internet. If you're interested in why/how , google "rfc 1918" no quotes.)
10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255
As a vendor I taught classes to Administrators, Network Engineers, Security Officers, Programmers, and router maintenance/installation. I used a document I found Online as a class handout. No matter how advanced the class was, student's questions could usually be answered by pointing to this Intro by Charles L. Hedrick at Rutgers (1987). Very easy to read...

Learn more about TCP/IP and protocols here:
http://www.linuxjunkies.org/network/tcpip/intro0.html

Gary
Sorry about the information dump, I get into "teaching" mode too easily.



gary drummond wrote:
Lori,

All of the docs I have specifically state that XP Pro and XP home can use remote assistance. This link states that the Home versions and Pro versions cannot use RA between them, which means you can only have home assisting home, or pro to pro. MCE looks like Pro (the RA is the same version), but now all bets are off and I don't want to guess if it will work with anything!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/remoteassist/intro.mspx


It, like practically everything I can find in my XP books, and on the internet, ignore MCE. My XP Inside/Out only has 3 or 4 pages on Home and MCE, and much of that is not correct...

Vista docs do state that the Home versions can RA each other, and the regular versions can RA each other, but NOT a mix of Home and regular versions. MCE features available in both versions of Vista, which should really complicate MCE application support from now on!

Remote desktop only works between '98/200x/XP MCE/XP Pro/Vista Reg. XP Home seems to be left out. I guess they figure the other users can't be bothered with helping Home users, or the reverse.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/tools/rdclientdl.mspx

The above link says remote destop is onj the Home CD and can be installed on any supported system, but if XP Home is not a supported system, why is it there? Why not try to download it?

The more I learn, the more confused I get. Soon, I will be a confused as Microsoft!

Gary

Lori wrote:
Gary,
I tried to write back to you but I must be totally brain dead. Your address got me a mailer daemon return thing.

I just don't think the Remote Meeting will work since I don't think he'll be able to find his IP address and it sound major complicated.

Thanks for your patience and trying to help.

"gary drummond" wrote:

Lori,
For all practical purposes MCE is XP Pro, less the policy/domain stuff, which should make things easier.

Did you try the download (or was it on the CD? If it works you can do the remote desktop connection.

I don't have XP Home here to test with, just Pro and MCE. I'll browse the books as I have time, since I may want to use it myself. Two of my brothers have XP Home and getting yours working will help me in the future. My problem is catching one at home!

One book also suggests using the Remote Desktop Sharing feature of netmeeting. It is installed on Pro and MCE, but just sits in the program files\netmeeting folder until you click on the conf.exe in the folder. I haven't used it, but it is documented online at microsoft, and probably elsewhere too. I'll try to drag out some old docs if I can. My son said he used it to fix a friend's PC, you just need the IP of the other host to connect. My email is
gdrumm0356
the-at
sbcglobal
a-dot
net
if you want to continue this offline, since it's not really an MCE problem (or maybe?).

Gary

Lori wrote:
Gary,
He has XP Media Center Edition, not XP Pro. Does any of your reply apply? I have already helped XP Home to XP Home and it just won't work using Windows Messenger invite from XP Home to take control of the XP MCE computer. That is the gist of my trouble. I'm not sure if that's what you were understanding or not. Thank you very much for replying.

"gary drummond" wrote:

Lori wrote:
A friend has a Windows XP Media Center Edition computer and mine is XP Home. We configured our ControlPanel/System/Remote tab to allow us to use the Remote Assistance, and I personally (I have the XP Home) have helped others before. However, when he sends an invitation through Windows Messenger, my computer gets the invitation but it's immediately terminated saying MY computer doesn't have Remote Assistance either installed or disabled. We both tried to disable any firewalls and it just keeps giving the same results. And I just recently helped my parents on their computer from NY to FL with absolutely no problem.

Any suggestions, please??? Thank you.
I find conflicting documentation (or I'm reading it wrong?) in the manuals I have.

My M$ manual states that you have Remote Assistance (RA) but not Remote Desktop (RD) on XP Home. The RA should work, which you say it does, but in one direction only.

The M$ book says RD only allows XP Pro to open incoming connections, but that RA should work between XP Home and/or Pro systems.

My XP Nutshell book states that the RA (rcimlby.exe) on your computer needs RD (mstsc.exe) on the expert system to work.

Very confusing.

Is he using RD, not RA?
Did you try the email version of an invite VS messenger?

M$ does have a RD download for XP Home

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/tools/rdclientdl.mspx

which also states you already have it on your CD????

Give it a try since nobody, even M$, seems to know what's going on...

Gary


.

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