Hi Mary G

Thanks for responding. I had gone through the FAQs before I posted. Both of us were online and ready for me to initiate the session. But, if you go through my post, after I open Remote Assistance by clicking the Start button clicking All Programs, clicking Maintenance, and then clicking Windows Remote Assistance I immediately get a popup window with the following  "C:\Windows\System32\msra.exe A referral was returned from the server." The only button to click on is "OK". And nothing else happens. The file path is as given on this post and not "C:\Windows\System32\measure" thats mentioned in the first post.....apologies, its a typo. So I'm actually not able to initiate the application in the first place. Is it a problem with the application itself or otherwise?

Thanks again

Well it appears that I've cracked it. The application seems to initiate now after a a bit of searching and making some changes. Need to get my brother online and will test it this weekend.:smileyhappy: Hope it works.

Just in case anyone's interested here is what I did :

1.  Open System by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking System.

2. Click Remote settings. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3. Checked the Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer check box.

4. Also checked Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure). This is under Remote Desktop.

4. Click Advanced, and then checked Allow this computer to be controlled remotely check box.

I'm just wondering how to go about initiating the process on the client system as its running on XP and I've never tried remote assistance on an XP machine. 

I use it all the time to hook up to my wife's girlfriends XP(Home) laptop.(A lot more than i like to. :smileywink: )

I have vista ultimate 64 runing on my system. Seems to work fine and we have not had any connection issues.

Hi Davet50,

Guess what? The fix which worked yesterday ain't working today. I tried opening remote assistance today and got the same error!! Am just baffled, yesterday it actually worked and gave me the console. Today, I tried everything under the sun.....its just not working. I tried system restore, windows repair (with the CD), getting new updates....no avail. I didn't make any changes to my system since yesterday. I even disabled my AV and firewall, no go. Yesterday, I remember my firewall asking my permission to allow the application to access the internet thru some port. I allowed it then and it worked fine. Today, its just too frustrating. I've checked on multiple forums (haven't created any post though) but there is no concrete solution. Since I gotta Dell system thought I would like to stick it here.

I will try the Windows Messenger option you gave, but, don't you think the tool should have worked? I'm told a lot of people used it with great efficiency. What really baffles me is that it worked last night, I turned off the system, logged in today and it still doesn't work. No changes made to system.

I never had great success using the remote assistance method. it was hit or miss for me as well. When i tried ti with the messenger when i was running XP it seems like we always connect on the first or second try. Then when I switched to Vista I tried it first with my XP laptop and had success and then with the other XP machine and had used it about 10 times(she's not all that computer skilled and is her own worst enemy) I do admit that when the remote assistant worked it worked good. So far i have not run into any issues controlling and running the remote computer.

I tried using Windows Live messenger and it didn't work. A friend who is into IT suggested TeamViewer 3, an application that is available free unlimited for non-commercial use. I downloaded it from http://teamviewer.com and installed it pretty easily. I used the remote session with a Win XP system almost halfway round the globe and was amazed with its ease of use and speed.

What I'm curious is if there is a catch associated with using this application. The terms and conditions states that I can install on only one system but can assist multiple clients, which I'm happy to abide by. I ran AV and anti-spyware scans on this application but didn't come up with any errors.