How to use Windows 10 Quick Assist to remotely troubleshoot PC problems

By Cale Hunt
published

You can use Quick Assist in Windows 10 to remotely help someone with a PC problem.

How to use Windows 10 Quick Assist
How to use Windows 10 Quick Assist

Have you ever had a friend or family member ask you for help setting something up on their PC? Maybe they asked you why it's not running properly, or maybe they were unsure why a program wouldn't install. In any case, if you aren't able to meet them in person — more so now that many people are working from home — the Windows 10 Quick Assist feature allows you to remotely access their Windows 10 PC. This feature gives you full control, so you can quickly work your magic on their device.

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Before allowing access …

Since this feature gives a person complete control over another's PC, you should only use it with someone you trust. If you are the person giving assistance, you need to use a Microsoft account. If you are receiving assistance, you don't have to be signed in to a Microsoft account. As long as you're comfortable with allowing that person access to your Windows 10 PC, the following steps will get everything working.

How to set up Windows 10 Quick Assist

It doesn't take long to get Quick Assist set up. This is what it looks like if you are the one providing assistance.

If you're helping out

  1. Right-click the Start button
  2. Click Search

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
  1. Type Quick Assist and hit Enter on your keyboard
  2. Click Give assistance

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
  1. Type your Microsoft account username
  2. Click Next

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
  1. Type your password
  2. Click Sign in

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

You're then shown a six-digit code that must be shared with the person receiving assistance. There are a couple of options you can click right in the window (like email), but you can relay the code any way you want.

If you're getting help

Once the other person has received the code, here's how to get things set up for the person receiving assistance.

  1. Right-click the Start button
  2. Click Search
  3. Type Quick Assist and hit Enter on your keyboard

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
  1. Click Get assistance
  2. Type the six-digit code you received from the person giving assistance

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
  1. Click Submit
  2. Click Allow as long as the name matches the person giving assistance

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

The person giving assistance will now have a window open that shows the other person's desktop.

How to use Windows 10 Quick Assist

Once you have a working connection, the person offering assistance has a number of tools at their disposal.

  • To annotate both screens, click the Annotate button. This allows the person giving assistance to draw directly on both screens using their mouse cursor.

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
  • To restart the other PC, click the Restart button. The Quick Assist connection will pause, but will automatically re-open when the PC restarts and boots Windows.

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
  • To open the Task Manager on the other PC, click the Task Manager button.

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
  • To pause or stop the connection, click the Pause or Stop button. The connection can be resumed by hitting the Play button in the same spot.

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)
  • If the person receiving assistance would like to stop the Quick Assist, they can click the X in the top-right corner of the small window on their screen.

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

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Office 365


Working from home and need to stay as productive as possible? A subscription to Office 365 will land you all the best Office apps, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, as well as 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage space for all users.

More resources

Looking for more information and help related to Windows 10? These articles should help.

Cale Hunt
Cale Hunt
Senior Editor, Laptop Reviews

Cale Hunt is formerly a Senior Editor at Windows Central. He focuses mainly on laptop reviews, news, and accessory coverage. He's been reviewing laptops and accessories full-time since 2016, with hundreds of reviews published for Windows Central. He is an avid PC gamer and multi-platform user, and spends most of his time either tinkering with or writing about tech.

16 Comments
  • Really great tech. Easy to use. So easy, your Mom or Dad can initiate it. You'll have to deal with the paranoia afterwards though.
  • I much prefer Teamviewer.  It's free. It works on any version of Windows AND Windows phone/mobile and other platforms.
  • Something baked into the OS is usually easier to talk a non-tech savvy person through.
  • Teamviewer is not free. In theory it is free for personal use but if you use it a few too many times they will permanently label you as a professional and start disconnecting you. For the past year or so every time I want to connect to my dad's computer I'm allowed to use it for no more than 5 min. It basically renders it useless. And it's not just my experience. It's all over the place. For personal use I actually moved to Quick assist now
  • Doesn't even matter if you use it 'few too many times' or not. I have used it maybe once or twice a month (at most) to help family members and was flagged. No notification ahead of time, just when I tried to help them I got that message. From their forums it seems like that is common occurrence. For some reason it stopped doing this for me. It is not something that you can rely on without having backup solution.
  • Works great. Only problem with Quick Assist is that it doesn't allow you to elevate to administrator when assisting a user that doesn't have local admin rights. For that I still need to use Teamviewer.
  • I wonder if this works in an enterprise environment too. Time to do some testing!
  • I have been waiting years for this baked in! Teamviewer is nice but being baked in makes it so much easier!
  • Cale, there is a search button right next to start button and is just one click. There is no need for right clicking the start button and clicking search. It requires two clicks.
  • It's possible that the person may have the search button disabled. However, you can still just click Start and begin typing. It automatically switches to the search UI.
  • I'm one of those people. I think it's cool you can hit the Windows button and simply start typing.
  • Some people have the Search bar hidden. Just covering all bases.
  • You can just hit Start and start typing your search. Opening the Start menu context menu is not necessary at all.
  • Ha! Actually it's even easier than hitting Start and typing "qu": there's a shortcut to go straight to Quick Assist: Win + Ctrl + Q. Just stumbled on this while looking for another shortcut. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12445/windows-keyboard-shortcuts Idunno what bases you're covering, dude.
  • "It just works."
  • What's all this 'right click the Start button and select Search' business? That's really over complicating things. It's way easier (particularly for someone who isn't great at using computers) to be told to click the Start button and just start typing 'quick'.