TeamViewer Alternative – And it’s Free – Quick Assist from Microsoft

TeamViewer is one of the most popular applications to share computer screens with other people. However TeamViewer is very expensive. Is there a TeamViewer alternative? Yes there is… and it’s 100% free.

We found a TeamViewer alternative one day because, as a business, we had to provide technical support to a remote Windows computer. TeamViewer is very clear about their software being used in a business should have a business license.

From the screen shot below, you can see a single license is $34.90 per month. What TeamViewer doesn’t tell you… until half way through the purchase process… is a yearly subscription is your only option. Ugh. This now puts your TeamViewer cost at $418.80 for a single year. More licenses require a bigger financial commitment.

We immediately went into TeamViewer alternative mode.

As an alternative, we found Quick Assist from Microsoft.

Quick Assist is 100% free and offered by Microsoft which allows users to share their computer screen and give free and total control to the other. There is no time limit for a sharing session and there is no limit to the number of times you can use the tool, or no limit for whom you use the tool with.

You need to download the free utility from the Microsoft App store, and that process is extremely easy. Type “quick assist” into the search bar and Windows will provide a link to download.

After download the Quick Assist app is ready for use.

By launching the app you can either input a code from an Assistant who is helping you remotely, or you can select the option to assist someone else. See the image below.

To assist another person you will need a Microsoft account and if you don’t have one, Quick Assist will put you through the process in a couple steps.

If you are receiving help from someone, a Microsoft account is not required.

Below are a couple screen shots for getting connected between an “assistant” and the one receiving the help.

It is worth noting, the Quick Assist application is 100% free, but there are some limitations to it. For example, there is no chat feature like in TeamViewer; however, we found launching Notepad will allow both users to type or chat to each other during the connection. Of course the two can always pick up a phone and communicate the old school way – by talking!

The only show stopping limitation could be the fact Quick Assistant doesn’t allow file transfers between computers. In our personal situation, we had to supply a file to the client and we simply emailed them the needed files… however, if an email issue (maybe the reason for Quick Assist in the first place) it could be a potential road block.

However, given the circumstance for our situation, we did find an excellent TeamViewer alternative which didn’t cost us anything, was quick to setup and had all the features we needed.

The other bit to consider, the Quick Assist is a Microsoft product used for Microsoft Windows. The tool doesn’t work in other operating systems.

So the next time you need to share a computer screen with someone who is off-site, the Quick Assist tool is a great alternative to the popular TeamViewer application.