Troubleshooting the Remote Viewing Session
Once the client has been located and permission granted, the remote viewing session begins. A variety of options and settings are available, and are documented in the "Remote Troubleshooting" chapter in the SMS Administrator's Guide. Unless you understand the consequences of altering these settings, they should be left at the defaults.
One issue that arises is the speed you can expect in remote viewing. Currently, only SMS includes encryption, so only SMS remote viewing is secure. Some people have stated that certain third-party products are faster than SMS remote viewing; this is an effect of the encryption phase.
For faster remote viewing in SMS, lower the resolution on the client computer and force16-color viewing. This decreases the amount of information that goes across the network.
Remote viewing is fastest over NetBEUI, and NetBIOS over TCP/IP is generally a bit faster than TCP/IP sockets.
For a successful remote viewing session:
- The server must be able to use the display information sent from the client.
- The client must be able to use the keystroke information sent from the server.
Troubleshooting Display Problems
Once the client computer's Remote Control Agent has been located and permissions have been granted, the Remote Control Agent hooks into the video driver graphic functions, encrypts them, and sends the information to the SMS Admin workstation.
For the display to appear properly, the SMS Admin workstation video driver and card must be able to interpret and display the information they receive, including all drawing functions, colors, and font information. The wide variety of display drivers and video cards available complicates this process.
Further, graphical information requires a great deal of memory. The higher the resolution, and the greater the detail in the display, the more memory required to store the information. When this information is sent over a network in "real time" to display on another computer, a considerable amount of bandwidth is used.
Common display problems include display incompleteness or color-mapping problems and font problems.
Display Incompleteness or Color-Mapping Problems
Symptoms:
- The Quick Viewer Screen may be completely gray.
- The Quick Viewer Screen may display different colors than the client.
- The Quick Viewer Screen may be missing, or may contain incompletely drawn icons or program groups.
- The display refresh speed may be very slow.
Troubleshooting:
- Try forcing 16-color viewing: In the Quick Windows Viewer, from the Control menu, choose Configure. Then choose Force 16 Color Viewing (Faster Viewing).
- Try decreasing the resolution on the client computer, especially if the client computer has greater resolution than the computer running SMS Admin. Or, increase the resolution on the computer running SMS Admin.
- Try using the generic video drivers included with Windows.
- Try swapping the client video card for one that works in another computer.
- If you are using a Cirrus video adapter and driver, you may be encountering a known problem that occurs when a Cirrus video adapter and the Cirrus driver V1.24 (driver GD5434 set to more than 16 colors) are used together. This problem is described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q152105, "Quick Viewer Font Problem(s) When You Remote Control to Clients;" a hot fix is available. You might also query the Knowledge Base for your hardware, "SMS," and "Remote Control."
- Check the available bandwidth. Low bandwidth can cause these kinds of problems.
- Perform a ping test from the Diagnostics utility in SMS (not the TCP/IP command-line ping test) on both a successful computer and an unsuccessful computer. If bandwidth is a consideration, you should see a significant difference. For TCP/IP networks, multiply Average Packets/Second by 72 (the UDP packet size). This result must be greater than or equal to 14,400 to meet recommended minimums.
- For clients running Windows NT 3.51, try toggling the "Install Accelerated Screen Transfer on Windows NT Clients" option.
Font Problems
Symptoms:
Fonts may be missing, may be an incorrect type, may be an incorrect size, or may be an incorrect split.
Troubleshooting:
- Follow the same procedures as for troubleshooting display completeness or color-mapping problems.
- If characters are preceded with a caret (^), you can correct this problem by pressing the ctrl key once.
- See whether fonts are installed on the client that are not available to the computer running SMS Admin. SMS maps equivalent fonts, and sometimes the font does not map well. Either remove the custom fonts on the client computer, or add them to the computer running SMS Admin. For example, you might see the following custom font entry in the SYSTEM.INI [BOOT] section:
system.drv=atmsys.drv
Disable the custom fonts, and restore the default setting:
system.drv=system.drv
- Consult the following Knowledge Base Articles:
- Q134340: "Font Display Problems Using Systems Management Server Helpdesk" (Windows 95 with Plus! pack client TrueType fonts and glyphs corrupted)
- Q137306: "Fonts Incorrectly Displayed During Windows 95 Remote Control" (if Plus! Pack is installed on client)
- Q138239: "Characters Missing in Quick Window Viewer During Remote Control" (MS-DOS–based client only)
- Upgrade to SMS 1.2 Service Pack 1. This is especially applicable for ATM fonts.
Troubleshooting Passing Keystroke Information Problems
Very few problems arise regarding passing keystrokes to the client computer. Basically, the keyboard drivers on the SMS Admin computer must be compatible with those on the client.
Symptoms:
Keystrokes on the SMS Admin computer do not have the expected effect on the client.
Troubleshooting:
- If you are using SMS 1.0, hot keys used during remote control of a client from SMS Admin may not work on the client. This problem is corrected in versions of SMS later than 1.0. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q135124, "System Keys Not Passed Through to Client Using Remote Control."
- If this problem occurs on all clients, try installing the SMS Admin Tools on another computer with a different make of keyboard. If this computer can successfully pass keystrokes, the problem may be the keyboard or keyboard driver at the original computer running SMS Admin. If this problem occurs on only a single computer, the problem may be the keyboard or a corrupted keyboard driver on the client. Try using a different keyboard on the server, or reinstall the keyboard driver on the client. If this problem occurs with only a certain make or model of keyboard, contact Microsoft Product Support.