Low-Key Teamviewer Rant

[BrianBaughn]

Has anyone noticed how backward-incompatible Teamviewer has become for macOS users? If everyone involved is up-to-date with hardware and software then it's fine and dandy. However, a user running the "updated" version on Mojave (for example) cannot assist someone running the "updated" version that a user of El Capitan has. Anyone here have a computer running El Capitan? I see many hands raised.

Another thing…the updater/installer. Have you ever seen how clunky it is? You get a dialog box that pops up telling you you're updating but the installer appears behind all your windows so you might not even see it to get it started. Try going through that with an 81-year-old over the phone.

 

[kingtj]

Yeah.... We used Teamviewer as our main remote control support tool at my last job, and I definitely had a love/hate relationship with it.

I always found it frustrating on the Mac because it wasn't able to grab control of the desktop if it was in the stage after a restart and login where the "wizard" was up on the screen, asking about the iCloud login and so forth.

The need for security permissions to be properly set in Catalina to make it fully function was another hassle. Seemed to auto-prompt to set those up correctly on a new install, but not on a Mac upgraded from Mojave or earlier. It wasn't fun having to walk a user through granting read/write permissions for things in System Prefs just so you could take control of their keyboard and mouse in a remote session.

 

[duanepatrick]

Haven't tried teamviewer on my lifetime. I'm seeing good reviews tho despite this thread. Have you tried opting to other applications? I'm using LogMeIn.

 

[kingtj]

Haven't tried teamviewer on my lifetime. I'm seeing good reviews tho despite this thread. Have you tried opting to other applications? I'm using LogMeIn.

Well, that's why I say for me, it was love/hate. There were a lot of good things about Teamviewer, including the list of computers you could create with descriptive names of who or where they were assigned to. And for a multi-user account, that formed a central list for all of your I.T. staffers controlling the remote systems. (They could still place individual machines in a "My Computers" group that was only seen by their own login.). The performance was good too. And it did a good job of easily letting you flip between/among multiple displays on remote systems. Even supported features like ability to reboot a Windows PC into "safe mode" and still take control of it.

I used LogMeIn before and for some reason, was never that happy with it. Granted, that goes back a number of years so maybe I'm not judging it fairly? At my new job, they use Bomgar for remote access and I see pros and cons with that package too. I noticed Bomgar makes it easy for multiple techs to jump in to an existing remote session and help work on an issue, while making it relatively clear the whole time exactly who is connected to it. And at least in our situation, it's tightly integrated with our trouble ticket system. But I felt like it was more of a hassle to view multiple monitor displays with it.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Usually, walking the user through setting up Teamviewer is more difficult than solving the issue they're having.

 

[duanepatrick]

Usually, walking the user through setting up Teamviewer is more difficult than solving the issue they're having.

This is true. Happens the same for LMI.
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Well, that's why I say for me, it was love/hate. There were a lot of good things about Teamviewer, including the list of computers you could create with descriptive names of who or where they were assigned to. And for a multi-user account, that formed a central list for all of your I.T. staffers controlling the remote systems. (They could still place individual machines in a "My Computers" group that was only seen by their own login.). The performance was good too. And it did a good job of easily letting you flip between/among multiple displays on remote systems. Even supported features like ability to reboot a Windows PC into "safe mode" and still take control of it.

I used LogMeIn before and for some reason, was never that happy with it. Granted, that goes back a number of years so maybe I'm not judging it fairly? At my new job, they use Bomgar for remote access and I see pros and cons with that package too. I noticed Bomgar makes it easy for multiple techs to jump in to an existing remote session and help work on an issue, while making it relatively clear the whole time exactly who is connected to it. And at least in our situation, it's tightly integrated with our trouble ticket system. But I felt like it was more of a hassle to view multiple monitor displays with it.

Haven't tried controlling the multi-user account yet. And that feat is not avail on LMI. Good to know that Teamviewer has options that LMI do not have. Maybe I'll switch at some point.