As of May 2009, Computer Wizards offers remote assistance for troubleshooting software related problems.

How does it work?
Remote Assistance uses special software to connect us to your computer over the Internet. The remote assistance software allows us to see your screen, move your mouse pointer and type via our keyboard. The connection to your computer is not automatic. It does require your assistance and permission to establish a connection. Once a remote assistance session is over we will not have any way to reconnect to your computer unless you run the software again and allow us access. During the remote assistance session you will be able to see everything that our technician does on your computer. When completed, you can simply close the window of the remote assistance software and we will no longer have access.

How Can I Get This Service?
First, you need contact us to check availability and set up an appointment. You can do this by email or by phone using our Contact Us page.
We will need a detailed description of your issue in order to determine whether it is something we can fix using remote assistance or not.

Please note that this service is NOT a national service. This service is limited to the Eau Claire and surrounding areas i.e. Chippewa valley area, Alma, Altoona, etc.

Step by Step:

1. Call or email us for an appointment.
2. Appointment is then set for the remote assistance session and we will call you at that time.
3. To set up the connection you will need to download a small file to your computer and run it. The remote assistance client can be downloaded HERE
4. After you have downloaded and started the client you will get a screen with a unique ID number (see picture to right)
5. You need to give the technician the number you see in the ID field. Only after this procedure can we connect to your computer.
6. The technician now will be able to perform the actions necessary to resolve the issue(s) with your computer.
7. When the session has ended, please close the remote assistance window as stated above.

That's it! Simple and Quick.

Rates: Our current rate is $1/minute with a 10 minute minimum. New customers must provide credit card for prepayment of the first 10 minutes (minimum) and the remaining minutes will be charged after the session has ended. We may, upon request, offer deferred billing to established customers.

Prerequisites:
The following conditions need to be met in order for us to be able to troubleshoot using remote assistance:

• You need to have a stable, high speed internet connection (Cable, DSL, etc).
• You computer needs to run any of the following Windows versions: Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, 2003, XP, Vista
• Any firewall software which might block the operation of the remote assistance software should be temporarily disabled for the time of the session and re-enabled afterwards.
• The computer should be clean of viruses, trojans and other malicious software.

What Can and Cannot Be Done With Remote Assistance

What we will do over remote assistance:

• Fixing software related issues such as email settings, installation issues, performance issues.
• Optimizing your computer for speed. This includes removing unnecessary software, startup items and files.
• Setting up or performing a backup of your system or personal files, as well as restoring files from such backup. This requires you to have a storage device such as a secondary internal hard drive, or external hard drive.
• Printing troubleshooting, if it's not clearly hardware related, i.e. printer is starting up fine, not displaying any error messages, and is not out of ink or toner.
• Training or demonstration of software usage for most software (it would be too long of a list to include here). We can send you the recorded session if you want to review it at a later time.
• An assessment of the state of the computer to determine whether it's worth fixing and an approximate cost of service.
• Computers infected with malware i.e. viruses, trojans, adware, spyware, etc. can make remote assistance difficult. Malware such as these often have such a strong protection mechanism and have become embedded so deeply into the system that they can only be removed using special techniques and procedures not possible over remote assistance. We will attempt to work on computers that show signs of malware software, such as slow speed and display of unusual pop-ups and error messages, but in most cases, these will need to be brought into our shop for a thorough cleaning.
• Any other software issues as long as it's not mentioned in the list below.

What we will NOT do over remote assistance:

• Computers that are heavily infected with malware i.e. viruses, trojans, adware, spyware, etc.
• Any problem that is clearly not software related, such as power-up issues, monitor, keyboard or mouse problems, connection problems, etc.
• Boot up problems. Naturally, the computer needs to be able to run the remote assistance client before we can do the remote troubleshooting.
• Network problems. Again the remote assistance software needs a stable network connection in order to work.
• Reinstalling of Windows.

Business Solutions:
We also offer remote assistance to local businesses, which can be help minimize downtime and get issues such as software, driver, printing, etc., resolved as quickly as possible without even removing the computer from your desk. We can also setup your business with a service contract placing our remote software on your PC's as a host process, allowing us to help maintain your systems remotely.