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A Black Screen Appears During a Remote Assistance Session in Windows 7

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Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2

Symptom

When an administrator tries to provide remote assistance to a standard (non-administrator) user in Windows 7, the administrator unexpectedly receives a black screen in the Remote Assistance session.

Cause

In Windows 7, this behavior occurs if the administrator tries to remotely run a program that requires elevated user rights and one of the following is true:

  • The User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation Group Policy setting is enabled (default).

  • The User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for standard users Group Policy setting is set to Prompt for credentials on the secure desktop.

In this situation, the secure desktop feature in Windows 7 displays the User Account Control dialog box only on the local desktop and the remote user receives a black screen.

Resolution

It is not recommended that you start a program as an administrator in a Remote Assistance session. In this situation, the user can disconnect the Remote Assistance session at any time. Then, the user can continue to use administrative rights to run the program.

To perform administrative tasks on a client computer, you may use a Remote Desktop Connection. For information about how to use Remote Desktop Connection, see Remote Desktop Connection Frequently Asked Questions (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=166582).