Windows Vista Security: Praxisorientierte Sicherheit für Profis

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Chapter 21: Getting Help and Handling Advanced Support Issues

Recovering Your Computer from Backup

Complete PC Backup creates a backup image of the entire computer and everything

needed to restore it completely. All system, program, and personal data included in

the backup is completely restored, overwriting any existing data. You can recover

your computer completely by following these steps:

1. Insert the Windows Vista installation disc and then restart the computer. When

prompted, press a key to boot from the installation disc. Setup will then load the

operating system from the disc.

2. When prompted, choose your language settings and then click Next. On the

installation screen, do not click Install Now. Instead, click the “Repair your

computer” link in the lower-left corner of the screen.

3. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, select the operating system to repair

and then click Next.

4. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, choose Windows Complete PC

Restore. Follow the prompts to recover the system.

Reinstalling Windows Vista

When all else fails and you cannot recover Windows in any other way, you can rein-

stall Windows Vista. This procedure follows the same steps you would follow if per-

forming a clean install of the operating system. Reinstalling Windows Vista will

result in the loss of all user settings and programs. After reinstalling the operating

system, you will need to reconfigure the computer and reinstall your applications.

Getting Help and Giving Others Assistance

Windows Vista offers two similar features for getting help and remotely accessing

computers: Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop. When you have a problem with

your computer, you can use Remote Assistance to ask an expert for help. You can

also use Remote Assistance to give others assistance. Remote Desktop is a feature

you can use to connect to a computer from another location and then work with the

computer as though you were sitting at the keyboard.

Getting Help from Another Person

When you want to get help from others, you must create a Remote Assistance invita-

tion and then make this invitation available to the person from whom you want help.

The easiest way to do this is to create an email invitation.

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You can create a Remote Assistance invitation and send it to your helper by follow-

ing these steps:

1. Click Start and then click Help and Support.

2. In Windows Help and Support, click Windows Remote Assistance under Ask

Someone. This starts the Windows Remote Assistance Wizard.

3. On the “How do you want to invite someone to help you?” page, shown in

Figure 21-16, click “Invite someone you trust to help you” and then click “Use

e-mail to send an invitation.”

4. On the “Choose a password” page, enter and confirm a secure password that is

at least six characters long. This password is used by the person you are inviting

and is valid only for this Remote Assistance session.

5. When you click Next, Windows Vista starts your default mail program and cre-

ates an email message with the invitation, as shown in Figure 21-17.

6. In the To field, type the email address of the person you are inviting and then

click Send.

Once you’ve sent the invitation via email, the Windows Remote Assistance dialog box

is displayed, as shown in Figure 21-18. This dialog box provides the following options:

Cancel

Cancels the Remote Assistance request by not allowing the invitation to be used.

Start/Stop sharing

Starts or stops sharing control of the computer with the helper.

Figure 21-16. Creating a Remote Assistance invitation

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Pause/Resume

Pause temporarily hides your computer’s screen from the helper. Resume

restores the helper’s view of your computer screen.

Settings

Allows you to configure the session settings.

Chat

Opens a chat window for sending messages between you and the helper.

Send file

Transfers a file to the helper’s computer.

Figure 21-17. Sending the invitation to your helper

Figure 21-18. Controlling the Remote Assistance session