Remote Assistance and Terminal Services Overview
The Remote Assistance and Terminal Services features, which are available in the applicable Windows operating systems of clients, are integrated into the SMS 2003 Administrator console. This provides you with more options for remotely assisting clients from within the SMS Administrator console. You can also configure and apply site-wide Remote Assistance settings for applicable clients from within the SMS Administrator console. For more information, see the "Configuring Site-wide Settings" section later in this chapter. No status messages are generated by SMS when you use Remote Assistance and Terminal Services from within the SMS Administrator console.
The Remote Assistance and Terminal Services options are dependent on the operating systems that are used for both the client and the computer from which you are running the SMS Administrator console. In some situations, both the Remote Assistance and Terminal Services options might be available for a given client.
In the SMS Administrator console, when you right-click a client in a collection and point to All Tasks, the All Tasks menu opens. The All Tasks menu contains the Start Remote Tools command, which you can use to assist any client in your site.
When both the client and the computer from which you are running the SMS Administrator console are running either Windows XP Professional or Windows Server 2003, the Start Remote Assistance command automatically appears on the All Tasks menu. You can use the Start Remote Assistance command to initiate a Remote Assistance session for these clients.
The Start Remote Desktop Connection command automatically appears on the All Tasks menu when the client has the Terminal Server client installed and enabled, and the client and the computer from which you are running the SMS Administrator console are both running one of the following operating systems:
Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Windows XP Professional
Windows Server 2003 family
You can use the Start Remote Desktop Connection command to initiate a Terminal Services session for these clients.
The client operating system data that SMS uses to determine the availability of Remote Assistance and Terminal Services is based on discovery data. Some discovery methods, such as Network Discovery, might not provide the operating system name and version. The Start Remote Assistance and Start Remote Desktop Connection commands might not appear until an SMS client is installed and a discovery data record is generated.
Notes
The appearance of commands on the All Tasks menu indicates only the possibility of the client to be controlled, it does not indicate that the feature is installed and enabled on the client.
On computers running Windows 2000, installing the SMS Administrator console upgrades the Terminal Services client to the Windows Server 2003 version of the Remote Desktop Connection application.
To start a Remote Assistance or Terminal Services session by using the SMS Administrator console
In the SMS Administrator console, navigate to Collections.
Where?
Systems Management Server > Site Database (site code - site name) >Site Hierarchy >Collections>collection containing client
Locate a collection that contains the client with which you want to start a session.
Right-click the client, point to All Tasks, and then click Start Remote Assistance or Start Remote Desktop Connection.
Note
- When you initiate a Remote Assistance session in the SMS Administrator console, Remote Assistance cannot automatically detect the speed of the network connection to the client. The session always assumes that a slow network connection exists. This provides the fastest possible performance in all situations.
For more information about using Remote Assistance and Terminal Services to control and assist clients, see the Windows operating system documentation.
For More Information
Did you find this information useful? Please send your suggestions and comments about the documentation to smsdocs@microsoft.com.