Having to support people in remote sites has its difficulties, especially when you need to take them through complex procedures.
Often, viewing the Remote Desktop is the only way to get the job done. Traditionally, this has been very expensive for companies, who need to purchase a license for each potential user of Webex/GoToAssist or whatever application they want to use. If you have five peope in your Tech Support team you're looking at quite a bit of money.
Now, Microsoft have released a new free application that provides you that facility. In this article I will take you through how to use it.
Installing the Agent.
Both machines need to have the SharedView application installed, but only the initiator of the call needs to have a live.com account. If you are in a support organisation, you may want to set up a Windows Live ID with your business email address here. To install SharedView on your PC download the application here (3.2Mb).
Starting a session
The chances are that the other user doesn't have SharedView installed, but that's OK. Just fire
up SharedView and once you have logged in with your Live ID, and click on "Start a new session".
You can use the "Copy instrctions to the clipboard" or "Open a new e-mail message" buttons to send the other user the details, or tell them to go to https://joinsvw.sharedview.com/join.aspx and enter the Session Name and Password.
The click on Start to commence the session.
You will be prompted when the other user connects.
Sharing the screen
Each user can choose to share a running application, or the whole desktop. To do this, just click on the SharedView toolbar at the top of the screen and select what you would like to share.
You can then request control by clickiung on the "Request control" button. The end user will need to approve this before you will be able to make changes on their PC.
And that's it!
SharedView is simple, quick and comes from a trusted source.
Enjoy!