How do I uninstall the Remote Assistance program from my computer?

In all modern Windows there is a tool that allows you to get help from a friend or trusted person in solving some problems with your computer. It is called "Remote Assistant". You can not delete this service because it is an embedded system component. But here it is very easy to disable it due to uselessness.

The Remote Assistance service: what is it and what is it used for?

This tool was originally designed to allow a user working at a computer terminal connected to a local network or the Internet to receive or assist another user at any time if there were any problems that could not be eliminated on their own.

The technology of assistance is based on the fact that after receiving the request, a person whom the user fully trusts (friend, relative, system administrator, IT consultant of the company) could connect to the user terminal and manage a remote computer from his PC or laptop. This is the so-called connection to the remote Desktop. When using this service, there is no need to install an additional RDP client (Remote Desktop Client).

However, there are rather delicate situations when, for some reason, a person does not want to respond to requests through the Remote Assistance service. You can not delete it, but you can disable it. In general, it should be noted at once that posing the question of excluding this component of the system is fundamentally wrong, since no part of Windows, no matter how hard you try, can not be removed from the system in the usual way without interfering with the program code. But let's talk about disconnecting.

Remote Assistance: how to remove? Configuring Remote Access

Since the connection between the two terminals is based on remote access technology, you first need to make sure that this connection permission is not established. If it is seen that it is in the active state, it should be simply deactivated. To do this, in the first stage, enter the computer properties menu or call a section from the "System" menu in the "Control Panel".

There is a hyperlink to the remote access settings on the left. After logging into the appropriate section, we use the remote access tab, where from below we activate the field of prohibiting the permission for remote connection to this terminal.

Direct disconnection of Remote Assistance

In the next step, in the same window, click the "Advanced" button, and then in the settings window, remove the check mark from the remote control permission line of this computer and confirm the changes.

Now it remains in the previous section to deactivate the permission string to connect the "Remote Assistance" service of Windows XP or any other operating system modification and save the changes again.

In some cases, you may receive a warning that you need to enable the Windows Firewall exception settings. This is due to the configuration of port 3389, which is necessary for the operation of the service, as will be discussed below.

Using the Group Policy section

So, it seems that we have disabled the Remote Assistance service. It is not known how to remove it, but the next step will be to check its activity. You need to make sure that the service is not running.

To do this, we use the Group Policy section, which can be accessed by typing the gpedit.msc command in the "Run" console (Win + R). Here, in the configuration of the computer, you need to go to the administrative templates and find it in the "Remote Assistance" section. It can not be removed naturally. But in the right window of the settings, you can either configure the permissions at your discretion, or at all change the value of the connection permission parameter to "Disabled" or "Not set". The same can be done, if desired, in the sections of the settings of the proposed or requested help.

To disable the remote access service, you can also use the section called by the services.msc command, where it should be set to a manual startup type. But, in principle, the first two steps described above are sufficient to deactivate remote assistance.

Do I need to block port 3389?

As it was already mentioned, the Remote Assistance program uses port 3389. If you understand, some people think that you can even do not disable this service, but simply block this port in the firewall settings, which is what they are trying to do.

Is it appropriate? If you look at the question, so to speak, in a global sense, blocking port 3389 can sometimes lead not only to the inability to use remote help, but will also affect other system components that use these settings. For example, connections of terminal services can be completely disconnected, and it will not lead to anything good. In addition, as indicated in the Microsoft technical documentation, the built-in firewall "Remote Assistance" does not block by default.

To deactivate it, you just need to remove the tick from the remote access service in the list of allowed programs. Therefore, preference in setting up the restriction of incoming or outgoing requests is best given to the parameters of group policies.

Conclusion

These are the settings for disabling the Remote Assistance service. To remove it for known reasons is impossible, and disabling should not cause difficulties even for an unprepared user. It is enough to make some simple actions, considered above. But if a person is engaged in the administration of computer terminals or local networks, there is no need to configure group policies, especially since there you can apply very specific settings, through which the service itself will not be blocked, and all requests will be made according to strictly established rules. Plus - full control over incoming and outgoing invitations.

If third-party assistance is not provided by the user of the PC, this component can even be left untouched, since it exerts a load on system resources on zero, and is not involved in other processes, even those related to remote access to other terminals.

There were not considered issues related to the direct use of the communication sessions and the sending or the creation of invitations, since the preference was given solely to the topic of disabling the built-in Windows service. Similarly, there were no additional third-party programs like TeamViewer and Ammyy.