If you find yourself supporting/fixing computers for friends and family members, then LogMeIn is an indispensable tool for you. I use LogMeIn Free to remote control the computers that I support and the reason that I love this tool is because it does an excellent job of punching through firewalls AND it requires absolutely no interaction from the person being helped in order for you to establish a remote connection. You need to install a small program that runs on each computer that you support – ideally this can be setup by you the next time you get called for support.
System Tray Icon
What I don’t like about the client side software is that it puts an icon in the System Tray. However, I have found that you can kill this icon using the registry without impacting any functionality. This way LogMeIn is completely transparent to the end user and you have the ability to remote control their computer whenever they are experiencing an issue. In order to remove the icon from the system tray, remove the following entry from the registry-
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Delete "LogMeIn GUI"
The next time you restart your computer, the system tray GUI will not run but the core LogMeIn processes will run, giving you complete access to their system.
Vista Update (10/10/2007): It seems that the system tray icon may give you some trouble on Vista machines. The simplest workaround right now is to simply rename the executable located here: C:\Program Files\LogMeIn\x86\LogMeInSystray.exe to something else. Change the executable in the x64 folder on 64-bit machines. If you find a better workaround, please post it in the comments.
Authentication
The other part that might be tricky is the fact that you need a local user account on the machine that you are going to support. Now I haven’t completely figured why this happens, but apparently depending upon the mood of the installer, you may be prompted by the installer to create a “Computer Access Code”. What this really means is that the installer has created a user account for you on that local box called “LogMeInRemoteUser” and has hidden this user account from showing up on the XP Welcome Screen or on the User Accounts management tool in the Control Panel.
I wasn’t too comfortable using “LogMeInRemoteUser” on some machines and a personal local account on other machines. Therefore, I chose to create personal accounts on ALL machines that I support and deleted the LogMeInRemoteUser account in an effort to maintain consistency. I will not be covering the steps to create a local user account.
First thing I wanted to do was to hide my personal account from the XP Welcome Screen and from the User Accounts management tool in Control Panel. To do this, add the following DWORD to the registry-
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList
Add DWORD for "AccountName" and set value to 0 to hide it from the UI
My Personal Account’s username is “Pranav” so I just create a DWORD for “Pranav” and set it to 0 ni the location mentioned above.
If you were prompted to create a Computer Access Code during installation, then the installer created a local account called LogMeInRemoteUser and you’ll notice that there is a DWORD entry in the same location for that account. Simply delete this DWORD and you’ll now see this account in the User Accounts management tool in Control Panel. You can then go ahead and delete this account if you wish to do so.
Conclusion
I am loving the product so far – especially since it is FREE and EASY. I have also been able to make this experience completely transparent for the people that I support and that is a great plus point for me. Please share your suggestions/experiences in the comments below.
