In this post I will show you how to disable Remote Assistance in Windows 10. I will cover two methods to disable remote assistance. The first method is using system system settings and the second method is using registry.
The first method is easier and preferable because it involves few steps while the second method has to be done with proper registry backup. We will also see the differences between remote desktop connection and remote assistance.
Remote Assistance in Windows 10 lets someone you trust take over your PC and fix a problem from wherever they are. By giving someone Remote Assistance helps them to troubleshoot issues on your computer.
This is useful when there is a remote site with no local IT presence. When a local user needs some assistance with system issues, he or she can contact IT. The IT sitting remote can troubleshoot and fix the issues when you enable remote assistance.
Sometimes people get confused between Remote Control and Remote Assistance. There are significant differences between remote control and remote assistance. With Remote Assistance you give partial control to your own computer. When you take a remote control of a PC, you get complete control over that computer.
The second difference is you need credentials to connect to a computer via RDP. However with Remote Assistance, you don’t need to supply any user credentials. And last and most important, Remote Assistance will show the same Desktop to both parties involved. With RDP the screen is locked when the helping person remotes-in to the PC.
Remote Assistance is not a new feature and it has been since many years. However in my opinion i see more of RDP usage than remote assistance.
Disable Remote Assistance in Windows 10
As stated above there are multiple ways to disable Windows 10 Remote Assistance feature. We will see two simple methods to disable the Windows 10 remote assistance.
Method 1 – Using Advanced System Settings
The most easiest way to disable remote assistance is through Advanced system settings. The below steps apply to both Windows 7 and Windows 10 OS.
To disable Remote Assistance
- Login to your Windows 10 computer.
- Launch Windows Explorer. You can also launch Control Panel > System and Security > System.
- Now click Advance System Settings.
- Click Remote tab under System Properties.
- To disable, uncheck Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer. Click OK.
Method 2 – Using Registry
The second method involves registry key modification in order to disable windows 10 remote assistance feature. Please read the below note once.
Note – Before you make any changes to the registry, take a backup of complete registry. This is required in case something goes wrong with registry modification. In case you want to revert the changes, you can simply restore the registry from the backup. If you don’t know how to backup registry, you may also create system restore point which backups registry keys when it runs.
To disable remote assistance using registry
- Login to Windows 10 computer.
- Click Run and type the command regedit. This opens registry editor.
- Navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Remote Assistance.
- On the right pane, right click fAllowToGetHelp and click Modify. Notice that the default value of this key is set to 1.
Change the Value data from 1 to 0. Basically “1” means enabled and “0” means disabled. Click OK and close the registry editor. Now reboot the machine and log in back. You will notice that Remote Assistance feature is turned off.
There could be several other methods to disable remote assistance feature in Windows 10. I have only covered two simple methods. In case you know any other easy method, do write in comments section. I hope this post helps.