Leverging Remote Assistance in Vista - windows-7

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)