Windows – remote assistance not allowing UAC prompt interaction with the box checked to allow

remote-assistanceuacwindows

I need to be able to connect up to customers computers and would like to use Remote Assistance, but I am unable to click on any UAC prompts, even though the user puts a check mark to allow me to click on the UAC prompts.

Here are the details:

  • They send me an invite file.
  • I start the session and they accept.
  • I can see their desktop.
  • I request control and they get a prompt to share control.
  • They put a check in "Allow xxxxx to respond to User Account Control Prompts" and click Yes.
  • Everything is fine until I get a UAC prompt.

I am unable to click on anything until the user clicks "yes". Isn't the point of that last box to prevent this? Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong or is this a bug?

Best Answer

You need to turn on a Group Policy setting and/or download a hotfix:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/asklar/archive/2012/03/14/remote-assistance-and-uac-prompts.aspx

However, in order for this to work properly in scenarios that prompt for elevation (i.e. UAC prompt), you have to enable a certain group policy:

User Account Control: Allow UIAccess applications to prompt for elevation without using the secure desktop

What this will do is it will enable Remote Assistance to show the UAC prompt on the user’s desktop, as opposed to the secure desktop. If you don’t enable this, the user being helped (call him novice) will get the prompt on his local machine – so the expert cannot interact with it since RA will only remote out the user’s desktop. At that point, the novice may not know what to do with it, and/or he may not have the administrator password. So it is important that you enable this group policy in order to have the UAC prompt show up in the user’s desktop and have RA remote out this dialog to the expert’s machine.

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