Greetings Fred,

Yes, this is by design. When Windows XP was designed (and till 2002), Windows Messenger and
MSN Messenger were the same thing and Remote Assistance was built with this in mind.

Unfortunately this changed but Remote Assistance still requires Windows Messenger to be
installed. Since you've already indicated that it is installed, it could have been disabled
which will also give you the error.

To re-enable, they will need to download and run both of these .reg files:
http://messenger.jonathankay.com/dow...enger_user.reg
http://messenger.jonathankay.com/dow...emessenger.reg
They'll need to reboot to see the change.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2006 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.
--


"Fred Flintstone" wrote in message
. ..
hello,
in some way remote assistance uses the program windows messenger, in order to make the
connection.
even though this is installed on the asking computer, there comes a message, that messenger
is not installed.
this happens both when assistance is requested through msn or through help and assistance.
is the person looks at the folder of messenger, the software is there, but cannot be
started up manually.
so I guess there must be a policy or registry entry, that prevents the use of messenger.
any suggestions ?
thks
Fred