What is needed for Remote Assistance?

[linuxmagnate]

Hi folks,

My lovely new nLited WinXP (Pro, SP3) has one terrible drawback: I can no longer give people remote assistance! First I couldn't accept invitations - Messenger kept telling me I had to upgrade, but I already had the latest version. It turned out it was because I had removed the original Windows Messenger (because I had integrated the new Windows Live Messenger add-on), and you need both! So I downloaded the messenger.msi installer for the original Messenger (version 5.1) and installed it. After that it would let me accept invitations, but the little applet that makes the connection doesn't start up. I can't find anything on this anywhere on the net - does anyone know exactly which components or files are required for giving Remote Assistance to work?

I don't even mind reinstalling Windows, if I have to - but I do need to know which components to include!

Thanks,

Chris

(EDIT: Oh ****. I got a buddy to find out what that app is, which launches when you accept an RA request. It's helpctr.exe! I think that's part of the Help & Support component. It looks like I'll have to reinstall - I don't think the help centre can be installed separately. Just thought y'all might like to know.)

Edited January 17, 2008 by linuxmagnate

[linuxmagnate]

(EDIT: Oh ****. I got a buddy to find out what that app is, which launches when you accept an RA request. It's helpctr.exe! I think that's part of the Help & Support component. It looks like I'll have to reinstall - I don't think the help centre can be installed separately. Just thought y'all might like to know.)

Update: you can (re)install the Help & Support Center by copying pchealth.inf (e.g. from another installation) into c:\windows\inf and then right-clicking on it and selecting Install. Apparently you need an XP CD with SP2 or later slipstreamed for this to work - it worked for me, and I didn't try using a non-slipstreamed CD.

But, when you've reinstalled the Help & Support Center, the service still isn't running! Double-clicking on helpctr.exe (or accepting an RA invitation) results in an error message: "helpctr.exe could not start because the Help & Support Service is not running". Googling for this error tells you to open Local Services (e.g. from Computer Management) and start the service manually, but it's not listed. So I'm now looking for a way to refresh the list of services once the Help & Support Center has been reinstalled (or maybe the files which constitute the service are not installed by the method above).

Ho hum.

CC