SimDeskEvery remote-support tool connects one of two ways: attended or unattended. They sound similar, but they solve different problems and carry very different security trade-offs. Picking the right one — or knowing when you need both — makes your support faster and your access easier to defend.
Attended: someone is at the machine
Attended support is a live session where the person you’re helping is sitting at their computer. They start the remote tool, share a short code, and approve access on their own screen. When you disconnect, nothing is left behind.
This is the right mode for the vast majority of customer and helpdesk support:
- The user is there and can grant consent in the moment.
- No software has to stay installed on their machine afterwards.
- It’s the least intrusive option — access exists only for that one session.
With SimDesk, attended support needs no install or login for the customer: they open the app, read you the six-digit code on their screen, and approve. That’s the whole setup — which matters a lot when the person on the other end isn’t technical.
Unattended: nobody is there
Unattended access lets you connect to a machine when no one is sitting at it — a server, a kiosk, a back-office PC that runs overnight. You set it up once with a stored credential, then reconnect on demand without anyone reading you a code.
Use it when:
- You maintain servers or always-on machines that need attention outside working hours.
- You manage a fleet of endpoints for a client and need reliable, repeatable access.
- Waiting for a human to approve every connection would make routine maintenance impossible.
SimDesk handles unattended access with a Secret ID and key set per machine, so your team can reconnect for maintenance securely — without weakening the consent model that protects attended sessions.
The security difference that matters
Attended access is self-limiting: it only exists while a real person approves it, and it ends when the session does. Unattended access is powerful precisely because it doesn’t need that approval each time — which means it has to be protected with a strong credential and used deliberately. A good tool gives you both models cleanly, rather than forcing you to weaken one to get the other.
So which do you need?
- Mostly helping end users and customers? Attended is your default.
- Maintaining servers, kiosks or a managed fleet? You need unattended too.
- Most support teams need both — attended for people, unattended for machines.
SimDesk includes attended and unattended in the same tool, free and with unlimited devices — so you’re not choosing between them or paying extra for the second one. If you want to see it in practice, the product overview walks through both; registering takes a minute and costs nothing.
Attended for people, unattended for machines. Most teams need both — the trick is a tool that does each one properly.