Question

I have the following shortcut for offering remote assistance in XP. This appears to be an unsupported URL protocol type in Vista. Are there any workarounds to get this functioning?

Answer

Remote Assistance is a standalone program in Windows Vista. The executable file name is MSRA.EXE (%windir%\system32\msra.exe) and it supports the following command-line arguments:

msra [/? | /expert | /novice | /saveasfile <path> [password] | /openfile <path> | /email <password> | /offerRA <computer>]

where
<path> Is the path to a file to be created or loaded.
<password> Is the password to protect the invitation.
<computer> Is the computer name or IP address of a computer.

Options

/? Display this help message.
/novice Start Remote Assistance and ask for assistance.
/expert Start Remote Assistance and offer assistance.
/saveasfile Create a Remote Assistance invitation by saving to a file.
/openfile Open a Remote Assistance invitation file.
/email Opens the default SMAPI e-mail client with an invitation attached for sending.
/offerra Uses DCOM to launch Remote Assistance on the novice computer remotely; automatically connects.

To launch the Offer Remote Assistance page, type MSRA /expert in Start, Run dialog. Or to connect automatically to a specific computer, use the MSRA /offerra <computername> syntax.