Allowing Others to Connect to Your Computer Remotely

You’ll appreciate XP’s Remote Assistance function if you’ve ever endured the friendship-corroding stress of giving or receiving tech support over the phone. Remote Assistance lets you invite a friend or technical expert—anyone you trust who’s running Windows XP—to help you by connecting to your PC over the Internet or a network. That person can swap messages with you, view your screen, or (with your permission) use his mouse and keyboard to control your computer.

Remote Assistance relieves novices of having to explain problems in jargon they haven’t learned, and lets experts cut the chatter and work on the novice’s machine directly. Experts can even install software, update hardware drivers, and edit the registry.