I guess everyone is familiar with the User Account Control (UAC) in Windows.

The main issue is the elevation of privilege’s. That’s a valid point in times where collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams are available and we have screen sharing capabilities where we can give control to someone else: That’s great but why should I care about a remote support solution anyway if I have Teams? In fact this is the same approach all the third party vendors like AnyDesk, TeamViewer, BeyondTrust Remote Support (aka Bomgar), or LogMeIn are using with their remote support software products.

Even behind some firewalls we normally don’t have any issues to successfully build a connection. This allows flexible connectivity to remote clients wherever they are. This way both clients can use outbound connections to the Microsoft cloud service and the cloud service is acting as a broker between both clients. The user who needs assistance also starts Quick Assist and connects the the same session by specifying the connection code. Quick Assist will hold a connection to the Microsoft cloud service and the supporter is given a connection code.

The supporter connects to a Microsoft cloud service by starting Quick Assist and logging in with a Microsoft Account (MSA and AAD accounts supported). The lesser known built-in Quick Assist from Windows 10 implements a different way of connecting to the remote client. In general with the mobile workforce nowadays we can’t rely on solutions needing a direct connection between two devices. If you are running an environment with a modern management strategy where your clients are highly mobile and managed by cloud services, your built-in direct connection based tools like RDP or Remote Assistance are limited in usability for supporting your devices.

Teamviewer quick support url