Windows 10: New Quick Assist app will soon be integrated into Windows

Microsoft announced the retiring of the integrated Quick Assist application of the Windows operating system in May 2022. Quick Assist is a remote assistance application, which may be used to get or give assistance. It is commonly used by technicians to provide remote assistance to an organization's workforce.



Microsoft decided to retire Quick Assist and replace it with a new Microsoft Store version. Windows users who attempt to launch Quick Assist on their devices right now get a prompt stating that there is a new version available on the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft explained back then that the new application would enable it to patch security issues and other issues more quickly in the future.

Administrators were not too happy with the change. Two main points of criticism were leveled at Microsoft. First, that the installation of the new Quick Assist required administrative privileges, and second, that one could not be sure anymore if Quick Assist was available on a user device. The latter required additional assistance to get the new version of the application on the user's device.

Microsoft released a new Windows 10 version 22H2 build and a new Windows 11 build to the Release Preview Insider channel this week; these builds add the new Microsoft Store Quick Assist application as a native app back in the operating system.

The new version will replace the classic version of Quick Assist, which can't be run anymore anyway, on the target system. Quick Assist can then be launched via the Start Menu or by using its dedicated keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Windows-Q.

Release Preview indicates that the changes will land soon in stable versions of Windows 10 and 11. Microsoft has yet to announce when this will happen though. Windows users may install the Microsoft Store application manually at any time to get access to Quick Assist right away.

You can check out the Insider Preview build announcements for Windows 10 and Windows 11 here.

Now You: have you used Quick Assist or another remote assistance tool in the past?

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Quick Assist not working

Good diagnostic step.

You've tried disabling 3rd party program startups, but there could be more things starting beyond those listed in the task manager startup list, if that's what you used.

Ideally you would have hands on access to both PCs... but that's not so. All credit to them for creating a new user account etc.

If you wished to disable more startups on the problem account you could use Autoruns (free from MS). But that seems asking a bit much of someone else remotely.

Of course, the problem could have nothing whatsoever to do with startups... you might want to check all services are default, for example, in particular those necessary for this.

Presumably it's not been blocked by the firewall:

Get and Give Remote Assistance with Quick Assist app in Windows 10
- some unfinished discussion as to whether both accounts had to be MS accounts or not.

I found this:

Windows 10 Quick Assist: Helpful Remote Assistance App or Potential Vulnerability? — Steeves and Associates


https://4sysops.com/archives/remote-control-windows-10-with-quick-assist/

This gives useful detail on how it works. For example, it uses port 443, so you need to check that's not blocked.
It also indicates how to block it- so you can check that doesn't apply.

 

Quick Assist

Hi,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

Please reply to the following questions to get a better understanding of the issue:

• What happens when you search for quick assist in the start menu?
  
• Are you getting any error message while opening Quick Assist?
  
• Which build version of Windows 10 is installed on your computer?
  
• Since when are you facing this issue?
  
• Did you make any changes to the computer recently?
  

However, you can try the troubleshooting steps mentioned below:

Method 1: Re-registering the app

1. Type PowerShell on the search bar.
   
2. Right click on PowerShell and select
   Run as administrator.
   
3. Type the following command and press Enter:
   
   Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers| Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
   
4. Once the process is completed, restart the computer and search for Quick Assist.
   

Method 2: Creating new user account

You can create a new user account and check if you are able to open Quick Assist.
To create a new user account please follow the steps from L: Create a local user
or administrator account in Windows 10.

Hope it helps.

Let us know if you got the help you needed by clicking ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Nikhar Khare

Microsoft Community - Moderator

 

Win-10 Pro Quick Assist app shortcut

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. Turns out that Quick Assist is already a shortcut in the Open Shell menu, but I was looking in the Apps menu as I knew that Quick Assist was a Win-10 pre-installed app and thus only looked in the Apps menu. Problem solved. Thanks.