Quick assist was a cool windows out of the box tool that can get or provide PC support via a remote connection. Because Quick Assist is a pre-installed app in Windows, it can also be used to provide support during setup via e.g. Autopilot. The experience for the user was really easy. You have to only read out a 6 character code from the client and type in on the quick assist app on the supporter site.

But this will be changed quick assist will not be longer a build-in tool in windows. Microsoft posted on April 27, 2022 in the Windows Insider blog that Quick assist will only be available via the Windows Store in the future and that support for the old client will end. So, if you want to continue using Quick assist in the future, you will have to install it from the Windows Store.

However, there are several problems here. The first problem is that the installation of Quick assist from the Windows Store requires admin rights. This is not always the case in a professionally managed business environment where users also have admin rights on their PC. The second problem is that if you are using Windows LTSC there is no Windows Store to get quick assist from. And user getting a error messages about missing WebView2 runtimes.

How you can solve this problem I will show you today in this blog.

Distribution Quick Assist via Intune

We will installed Quick assist as offline version from the Windows Store for Business. Offline version does not mean that the app sources are downloaded and a new app must be created for each new version. We will activate the sync of Intune with the Windows Store for Business as a first step. Intune can always pull the latest version of quick assist from the store. As many have already noticed, the support of Windows Store for Business will end in 2023. Again, there is no reason to panic. Rudy Ooms has summarized very well in his blog what this means.

Activate WSfB to Intune sync connector to add offline apps to Intune

• Open the MEM Portal
• Navigate to Tenant administartion-> Connectors and tokens -> Microsoft Store for Business 
• Ensure that “Microsoft Store for Business sync” is set to Enable. If this is not the case enable the WSfB and click Save

• Open the store via the Link below

• Navigate to Manage -> Settings and make sure that show offline apps are activated. If this is not the case activate this option and accept the Terms of use.

• Navigate to Distribution
• Make sure the Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Intune Enrollment is active. Is this is not the case click + Add management tool

Add and distribute Quick assist as an offline app to Intune

• Search in the WSfB for Quick Assist
• Click on Quick Assist

• Select Offline
• Click Get the app

• The order from Quick Assist in the WSfB is done
• Go back to Intune and click Sync in the WSfB connector to speed up the process and wait some minutes

• Now we can se the Quick Assist (Offline) in the Application list

• Now we will add a assignment to the application
• Click on the Quick Assist (Offline) application
• Click Properties and Edit

• Click + Add group and select a group
• Click Select and Review + save
• Click Save

• Wait a few minutes and the installation of quick assist should be successful.

• When the installation is finished you will find 2 versions of Quick assist. Now open the WSvF version.

If you do not have WebView2 installed on your computer you will get the following error message: This application requires WebView2 runtime to run. Please install it and try again. How you can fix this error I show you now.

Install WebView2 via Intune

• Open the MEM Portal
• Navigate to Devices -> Windows -> Configuration profiles
• Click + Create profile

• Select Windows 10 and later platform as Platform
• Select Templates as Profile type and Administrative templates as Template name
• Click Create

• Enter and name
• Click Next

• Navigate to Computer Configuration/Microsoft Edge Update/Microsoft Edge WebView
• Select Allow installation (2.0)

• Select Enabled
• Select Always allow Installs (recommended) as Install Policy
• Click OK

• Select the Update policy override policy and select also Enabled
• Select Always allow updates (recommended) as Update Policy
• Click OK

• Click Next -> Next
• Assign the policy to a group
• Click Next

• Click Create

With this policy we have made sure that we have fixed the problem with the missing Web View 2 and that it will always update automatically when there is a new version.

Conclusion

The change that Quick assist now has to be installed via the Windows Store causes some challenges as mentioned above. I hope I could explain you in this blog how you can manage these challenges. It was a great feature that it was possible to connect remotely to a device before it was even enrolled. This will no longer be possible in this way as Quick assist will be installed during enrollment. Nevertheless, it remains that quick assist is a very good tool to remotely support Windows PCs in a very simple way.

Stay healthy, Cheers
Jannik

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Update 18.06.2022:

• You can see in the start menu that here are two links from Quick assist
• This is a bug and is fixed with a newer version

• To delete the shortcut manually you can build a remediation script via Endpoint analytics:

Detection:

<#
Version: 1.0
Author: Jannik Reinhard (jannikreinhard.com)
Script: Delete-OldQuickAssistShortCutDetection
Description:
Delete shortcut from the old quick assist version
Release notes:
Version 1.0: Init
#> 


$path = "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\Quick Assist.lnk"
If(Test-Path $path){
    Write-Host "Shortcut exist"
    Exit 1
}
Write-Host "Shortcut not exist"
Exit 0

Remediation:

<#
Version: 1.0
Author: Jannik Reinhard (jannikreinhard.com)
Script: Delete-OldQuickAssistShortCutRemediation
Description:
Delete shortcut from the old quick assist version
Release notes:
Version 1.0: Init
#> 


$path = "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\Quick Assist.lnk"
If(Test-Path $path){
    Remove-Item -Path $path
    
}