Can I keep my desktop private while tech support remotely controls my PC

September 3, 2020 5:57 PM

My Windows 10 backup software is showing an error and the company that makes it would like to remote in to my computer in order to figure out what is going wrong. Is there any way I can let them do so without them also seeing my desktop/startup items/etc? There's nothing super controversial on there but I would like to keep it private if possible. I thought about creating a new user but am not sure that that would be equivalent in terms of what the backup software is doing which may make it a moot point. I'm not sure what software they will want to use in order to connect.
posted by softlord to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

This won't stop them from finding stuff if they go looking, but a good-enough step for your privacy / not being judged by a random tech support person might be what I do when I'm using my computer to give a presentation:

* Change the desktop background to one of the boring default ones
* Create a single folder on the desktop named "Desktop Clutter", and move everything into it. If the your backup procedure involves a shortcut on the desktop, then leave that one where it is and move everything else.

Both of these steps are easy enough to reverse once the tech support call is over.

(Standard caveats apply about it being very likely that anything you do on a work computer / on a work network is already not private)
posted by Metasyntactic at 6:45 PM on September 3, 2020 [6 favorites]

It depends on their software; they might see your desktop wall paper briefly, then it may get blanked to save bandwidth. You can make a folder on the desktop and put all your stuff in it, then unpack it after. Find and save your desktop wallpaper, typically in C:\Windows\Web, back it up, then set the wallpaper to a solid color. They may need to see other apps installed.

I have done a lot of remote connecting, prefer neutral wallpapers, and generally don't pay attention to personal stuff, but I totally understand the wish for privacy.
posted by theora55 at 7:52 PM on September 3, 2020

First, assumptions: I'm assuming you're not a high-interest target for spying. If you're a journalist, lawyer, political activist, or other sensitive target, you should not let untrusted parties remotely access your computer, period.

If you have logins to anything relatively sensitive or private (e.g. email, social networking accounts, financial accounts, work accounts that are unrelated to the backup software, etc.), I'd recommend signing out of all of the ones that you are able to, so that if they happen to open a browser, they won't see anything that isn't public. If you have very sensitive files, you may want to move them off of this computer (though be careful if you don't have other backups of these files, moving the only copy of a file is a great way to accidentally lose that file).

You can also hide everything on your desktop without moving it by right-clicking on the desktop, then choosing View, then unchecking Show desktop icons (you can reverse this procedure the same way). Before the session, it'd probably be a good idea to close any programs that you don't want them to see notifications from or accidentally switch to, and you might also want to unpin any programs from your taskbar that you don't want them using either (it's easy to accidentally misclick, even if they have no intention of using them).

I've done some remote debugging sessions before with customers and they are almost certainly doing this because they can't think of any other option for understanding and/or fixing the problem, and they very likely will be actively disinterested in anything that might be on your PC beyond what information they can use for troubleshooting.
posted by Aleyn at 10:59 PM on September 3, 2020

What backup software from which company?
posted by flabdablet at 5:03 AM on September 4, 2020

Also, what's the error?
posted by flabdablet at 5:16 AM on September 4, 2020

Reason I ask is, as somebody who used to admin a school network and maintain its workstations and servers, I utterly fail to understand how a company that makes backup software would need to remote in to diagnose anything it could possibly do wrong, and the idea that somebody would want to do things that way is making my spidey senses tingle.
posted by flabdablet at 5:18 AM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]

Create another local user account, switch to that user and verify that you can recreate the error condition in your backup software.

microsoft create local account on windows 10
posted by TheAdamist at 8:21 AM on September 4, 2020

Response by poster: @flabdablet Genie Timeline https://www.zoolz.com/genie9/home-users/genie-timeline-home-10/
posted by softlord at 10:43 AM on September 4, 2020

At a minimum, I would right-click on the desktop, choose View, and de-select the Show desktop icons option.
posted by HiddenInput at 11:21 AM on September 4, 2020

Ah, one other thing, if you do decide to let them do this (not really recommending you do or not, just providing info on how to approach this if you decide to do it), you should ensure that they have a written agreement about what things they are specifically allowed to access, for how long, what modifications (if any) that they are allowed to make, etc., and you should review this document carefully. If they do this on any sort of routine basis, they should provide this document as a matter of course, but if they haven't, you should ask them for one. If you don't understand any part of this document, you should ask them for clarifications in writing. This company appears to have offices in the UK and the US and would be subject to those jurisdictions if it came to any sort of legal wrangling.
posted by Aleyn at 3:15 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth I am not familiar with Genie Timeline, which if the makers had a reputation for installing spyware or adware or otherwise doing terrible things to people's computers by remote control I quite likely would be.
posted by flabdablet at 10:51 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]