Intune's Remote Help App on SQ3 ARM (Surface Pro 9 5G) and Quick Assist App

[TM]

Our company uses Intune's Remote Help app. It's excellent. However, Intune's Remote Help app does not yet work on Microsoft's SQ3 ARM (Surface Pro 9 5G) devices. (Neither does Windows' Quick Assist app.)

Does anyone know an approximate date Microsoft intends on rolling out support for Intune's Remote Help and Windows Quick Assist on ARM (SQ3) devices? We like the new Surface Pro 9 5G but since Remote Help doesn't work on SQ3 ARM based devices, it does not make sense to purchase more of these devices until we know when we'll be able to support our users who want them. Also, we'd appreciate knowing where this type of Intune news can be obtained. Thanks.

[#2]

How do you know it wasn’t supported? Do you get a message or an error? I would open a case with MSFT regarding this issue.

Here is the latest added features in Intune:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/fundamentals/whats-new

Moe

[#3]

First, we installed both the Quick Assist app and the Remote Help app on the new Surface Pro 9 5G. For the Remote Help app, we attempted an install using Intune's app deployment as we always do (all our Intel chip-based devices install it flawlessly), but Intune failed to install the app on the SQ3 (ARM) device. So, we installed the Remote Help app manually on the device. The app installed but when we attempted to run the app, it would not fully connect with another Intel device that we knew worked properly. We could enter a code for the Remote Help session and the two devices would attempt to connect, but successfully connect they never would. A message would pop up indicating the service was not available, try back later.

So, we opened tickets with Microsoft; both with the Microsoft Windows group and with Microsoft Office 365 Intune support group. Here are the results of that.

On the Windows side of the house, we opened a support ticket for the failure of the Quick Assist app. In the beginning, they asserted it was supposed to work. After various tests, they conceded Quick Assist was indeed not yet supported on the SQ3 ARM chip. No timeframe was given as to when this might change. They closed the ticket saying there was nothing further they could do.

For Intune's Remote Help app, we opened a support ticket with Office 365's Intune support, and they first looked at our Intune portal for the error messages and found error messages stating that indeed the Remote Help app is not supported. The message we see in the Intune admin portal for "Device Install Status" is "Device architecture (e.g. x86/amd64) is not applicable for the application."

In both cases, I am assuming that this issue is being "pushed" up to the higher ups in Microsoft for their attention (I don't know that for sure), but no one seems able to answer confidently as to when Quick Assist or Remote Help on SQ3 (ARM) devices will be supported. All the support people we worked with closed the tickets referring us to Microsoft's web page about ARM devices titled "ARM-based Surface devices FAQ" at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-arm-faq

And so, we hope to get some kind of info on when both apps, Quick Assist and Remote Help, will be working on SQ3 (ARM) devices.  

[#4]

@TM

Got it, well detailed information!

I’m not surprised to see the apps limitation in ARM devices, those devices are fast and take less battery usage but you may end up with limitations like you mentioned above. Many of the apps need to be edited before they can run. 

For the Intune push, I know these devices require rule of 32 bits. Do you have that configured?

Moe

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/remote-actions/remote-help#install-and-update-remote-he...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/overview

[#5]

Yes, we have Intune config’d properly for pushing the apps out correctly. As I mentioned above, Intune’s admin portal shows a message indicating the app is not supported. It would seem this should be a high priority issue of Microsoft's given this lack of support could result in lower sales of these devices. If a typical admin depends on the Remote Help app (or Quick Assist) to support their users, they're not going to purchase more of those devices until they know they can support them with the Remote Help or Quick Assist app. Anyway, I’ll say, we do like the Surface Pro 9 5G. For those that are primarily Office 365 business users, we found it to be a great device, but we'll not purchase more until we get guidance on when Microsoft/Intune will support ARM (SQ3) with Remote Help.

[#6]

UPDATE: This issue is resolved. Both the Remote Help app and the Quick Assist app now work on ARM devices. 

Download Remote Help

Download the latest version of Remote Help direct from Microsoft at aka.ms/downloadremotehelp.

The most recent version of Remote Help is 5.0.1045.0

Installing this download on a Surface Pro 9 5G (ARM) device, I found the Remote Help app now works properly, which is great news for those who have ARM devices and want to use this app. 

My next step is to deploy this via our Intune portal to our ARM devices. I can't yet speak to whether that works properly yet. (I will post an update once I get that working.)

Note: Quick Assist now works as well on ARM devices but that should that update has been already released via Windows Update so nothing is needed to use that on ARM devices.