How to Remote Assist Autopilot Deployments with Quick Assist

Article Updated (Nov 18th, 2022) 

New way to invoke QuickAssist app

 

Hi, my name is Ricardo Carvalho, I am a Customer Engineer working in Modern Workplace and Security in our Customer Success Unit team. 

 

How many times do we need to support remote users when they are installing a Windows 10/11 computer with Autopilot? Probably a few times. We now have a fast solution for that, which is already present on all machines - Quick Assist

 

Recently working with a customer, I have had this challenge. I was working from home and the customer was at his office and there were some issues using autopilot, like errors on Device Configuration, Applications setup, etc., and customer wasn't able to tell me correctly what was happening. So, I remembered to try Quick Assist to remotely access the computer and it works! We can run it on OOBE (out-of-box experience).  

 

How? When you reach any part of OOBE you can press SHIFT+F10 to open a command prompt and you can start opening computer applications such as Event Viewer, File Explorer, Microsoft Edge, PowerShell, Control Panel and, collect diagnostics, check Event Viewer to troubleshoot Autopilot deployment. 

 

Here is the step-by-step: 

 

We start by authenticating with your Work or School account (Microsoft) to initiate Autopilot process. 

 

Work or School account login window

 

And then if user has a problem and need your support and we want to analyze, the user should press SHIFT+F10 to open a command prompt. 

 

Opening command prompt with Shift+F10

 

If you just, try to open Quick Assist it will ask you to update application before you can run it. That is not possible because MS Store is not available at this point. So, for you to be able to open the last version, you need to run bellow commands.

Thank you to Florian_Obradovic and ShannonFritz for their inputs and help!

 

 

 

powershell -ex bypass
Install-Script -Name Invoke-QuickAssist
Invoke-QuickAssist.ps1

 

 

 

1. Run powershell -ex bypass

 

Click Y for Yes (twice) and A to accept All

 

Run command - powershell -ex bypass

 

2. Run Install-Script -Name Invoke-QuickAssist

 

Run Command - Install-Script -Name Invoke-QuickAssist

 

3. Run Invoke-QuickAssist.ps1

This command will install Quick Assist and at the end will start it automatically

 

Run Command - Invoke-QuickAssist.ps1

 

End User Write the code provided and allow to share the screen with Full Control.

 

Quick Assist - Allow computer full control

 

And the IT person is now in control. They can now remotely manage the machine in Autopilot. 

 

Quick Assist - In control of remote machine

 

An example of reading Event Viewer to validate log entries 

 

Analyzing Event Viewer logs

 

When the computer restarts Quick Assist drops the connection. Every time it changes between Device Preparation to Device Setup or to Account Setup, Quick Assist will drop and need to be reconnected. 

 

Some personal notes: 

Sometimes Quick Assist can take more time to start working on the Autopilot machine.

If Quick Assist fails to open or says it is not available, it may be an issue with your network or the computer but most probably with the service. Don't give up, try again and it will work fine. 

 

Thank you 

Ricardo Carvalho