Leverging Remote Assistance in Vista

Question

On Windows XP there is a known way to create a Remote Assistance Ticket.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms811079.aspx

But on Vista this does not appear to work. How does one do this on Vista or Windows 7?

Answer 1

There turns out to be two ways. The Microsoft API is called IRASrv and is documented here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc240176(PROT.10).aspx

Another way is to simply call msra.exe. with password and novice params (e.g. msra.exe /saveasfile testfile thepassword). However that does prompt the user with the password dialog.

Here is example code for calling the IRASrv interface and generating a Remote Assistance Connection String.

COSERVERINFO            si; ::ZeroMemory( &si, sizeof( si ) );
MULTI_QI                qi; ::ZeroMemory( &qi, sizeof( qi ) );

HRESULT hr = S_OK;

BSTR bstrUserName     = SysAllocString(L"jon");
BSTR bstrDomainName   = SysAllocString(L"");
BSTR bstrPasswordStr     = SysAllocString(L"testpass");

// Get the security information entered by the user
_bstr_t bstrUser(bstrUserName);
_bstr_t bstrDomain(bstrDomainName);
_bstr_t bstrPassword(bstrPasswordStr);

// Set AuthIdentity
SEC_WINNT_AUTH_IDENTITY_W AuthIdentity = {
    (unsigned short*)bstrUserName,
    bstrUser.length(),
    (unsigned short*)bstrDomainName,
    bstrDomain.length(),
    (unsigned short*)bstrPasswordStr,
    bstrPassword.length(),
    SEC_WINNT_AUTH_IDENTITY_UNICODE 
};
COAUTHINFO AuthInfo = {
    RPC_C_AUTHN_WINNT, 
    RPC_C_AUTHZ_DEFAULT, 
    NULL, 
    RPC_C_AUTHN_LEVEL_PKT_PRIVACY,  // The authentication level used
    RPC_C_IMP_LEVEL_IMPERSONATE, 
    (COAUTHIDENTITY*)&AuthIdentity,
    EOAC_NONE 
};

si.pAuthInfo = &AuthInfo;
si.pwszName = bstrMachineName;
qi.pIID     = &(__uuidof(RAServerLib::IRASrv));

hr = ::CoCreateInstanceEx(
    __uuidof(RAServerLib::RASrv), NULL, CLSCTX_REMOTE_SERVER, 
    &si, 1, &qi );
if (FAILED(hr))
{
    return hr;
}
CComPtr<RAServerLib::IRASrv> prasrv;
hr = qi.pItf->QueryInterface(__uuidof(RAServerLib::IRASrv), (void**)&prasrv);
if (FAILED(hr))
{
    return hr;
}

LPWSTR pstr=NULL;

hr = prasrv->raw_GetNoviceUserInfo(&pstr);
if (FAILED(hr))
{
    return hr;
}
    pstr contains the Remote Assistance Connection String (type 2)