Forum Discussion
Nathan_Pfeifer
Microsoft
MicrosoftRemote assistance with Quick Assist is changing
Hi Insiders! Russell Mosier and Bianca Taylor, from the Experiences + Devices team are excited to share an upcoming change to their remote assistance app, Quick Assist.
Remote assistance wi...
TWO YEARS Later: here we go again:
I told my 80+ y.o. father he should finally accept the in-place upgrade from Windows 10 to 11.
I frequently support him remotely using Quick-Assist, so obviously it's installed on Windows 10.
Post upgrade to Windows 11, he calls me.
He clicks the Quick-Assist shortcut pinned to the TaskBar: it throws an error for failing to find the app. So we try Win+CTRL+Q. NOPE! Search the start menu: Because Microsoft default is to return Web results for every search, he gets so many answers as to make it dangerous for him to select one. I tell him to open the Microsoft Store directly: same result: Tons of results he is unable to parse w/o me seeing his screen to help him select. Finally I search the Microsoft Store myself and email him a URL. Walk him through downloading, finding Downloads, running/installing/opening Quick-Assist.
LITERALLY TWENTY-ONE Minutes to make a Quick-Assist connection.
HOW Damned difficult would it have been for Windows 11 to recognize Quick-Assist was installed and make sure it was still installed after upgrade.
ps: so we get to his question: how do I switch users?
OMG: Windows 11 improved the start menu by putting the signed-in user front and center (er bottom left, just above Start), with an actual name rather than a cryptic generic avatar ... BUT then they go and HIDE 'sign-out' and 'switch-user' under a 'more' button. WTF. For home users sharing a computer Sign-out / Switch User are FAR more likely to be used than looking at their microsoft account (in our case they are local accounts). If it wasn't for about (2) apps he uses, he would already be on Linux.
"LITERALLY TWENTY-ONE Minutes to make a Quick-Assist connection."
your comments are 100 percent accurate, the dangerous default web search is lethal for the older generation and the less IT literate (but hey ho web results first mean they can slide in some paid adverts. The fact it might take them to a dodgy lookalike trojan with a backdoor in it is not their problem right?) Equally your comment about the hidden "sign out" and "switch user" is also very relevant. Took me a minute or two to realise that my remote user on the phone wasn't blind and the option to sign out was genuinely not on screen.
We have a domain and keep trying to tie it down security wise because you know, ransomware is a thing and current cyberwarfare threat levels are just a tad high. QED users are not allowed to install anything and almost everything requires elevation. Guess what, GPO deployment of QuickAssist via Power Shell script fails because it runs in the user context. Microsoft has a workaround though, pay them thousands of dollars extra per year for a licence tier that includes Intune of course. I begin to suspect this is not accidental but a long standing pattern. MicroShaft tests new features on the users for free (unpaid beta testing), and once it refines them (release candidate) it removes them from the "free" level to put them behind a paywall of a higher licence tier. You might be forgiven for suspecting the lack of an MSI is a deliberate "feature" of the new QA experience. 😞
