Alex Colson - Fixing Remote Assistance

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Fixing Remote Assistance
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Created: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 10:33:18 AM by Alex Colson

Tags: Microsoft, Remote Assistance, Safe Mode, Windows

In Windows XP and Vista the Remote Assistance feature requires HelpAssistant to be a valid user on the machine. If this user has been deleted, the Remote Assistance wizard will return a very vague error that says "A program could not start. Please try again."

To fix this problem:

Reboot into safe mode by restarting Windows and hitting F8 before Windows loads.
When Windows has booted into safe mode, goto Start > Run and type "sessmgr.exe -service".
It will look like nothing has happened so after running the command, check to see if the HelpAssistant user has been created on the machine.

When the computer reboots into the normal Windows mode, Remote Assistance should work.

Sunday, September 5, 2010 10:38:14 AM EST (0.0217 s)