Remote Control over CMG MEMCM TP 2009 – First look

Had to test out this feature as well in Configuration Manager(MEMCM) 2009 Technical Preview, remote control over Cloud Management Gateway(CMG). A long awaited feature that was first introduced in Technical preview 1906, Technical Preview Docs and then removed again for a year or more.

Being able to remote control a computer over Internet using CMG has been asked for many many times the last couple of months with all Work from home that is being done now in these hard Covid-19 times. So I needed to check it out and recorded a short video here on how the experience was as shown below.

The requirements for using it is the following from the Docs, more information can be found here: Technical Preview 2009

• The user that is remote controlling, needs to be added to the list of permitted viewers in client settings/remote control.
• The CM Client needs to be updated and online over CMG

The following authentication options can be used.

• A valid PKI client certificate
• Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)
• Token-based authentication

It works really well haven’t tested slower connections yet…

One thing I will file as feedback is that it seems like it is trying to resolve the client the local network first and after timeout tries to use the CMG. This takes a while as you can see in the video above and could be stressful when trying to remote control a computer both for the end user and the technician.

Great that we finally can test it again at least, let’s hope it makes it to the next release.