Getting Started - Frequently Asked Questions

If you are just getting started you may find our Getting Started Guide or this 1 minute video useful.
If you still need help, here is a list of the most common topics our users have questions about:

• The Access Code
• The Confirmation Email
• Forgotten Password
• Troubleshooting: Can't Connect
• Troubleshooting: Connection Drops
• Troubleshooting: Slow Connection Speed
• Security Warnings
• Troubleshooting: Problems with Vista UAC
• Can't Install the CrossLoop Application
• Mac Support
• Deleting my CrossLoop account

The Access Code

You can find your access code by clicking in the "Share" tab of the CrossLoop application.

You only need the access code if you are going to establish a screen-sharing session with another computer. In order to start a screen sharing session you should follow these steps:

1. Provide the access code that appears in the "Share" tab of the CrossLoop application to the person that wants to access your computer
2. The person accessing your computer enters the access code into their "Access" tab
3. Both parties press "Connect"
4. The person that clicked on the "share" tab will receive a prompt to accept the connection
5. Grant permission for the other person to "View" or "Access" your desktop

The access code is a 12 digit number randomly generated by the CrossLoop application and it is used to encrypt the data before it is sent over the internet.
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The Confirmation Email

Your confirmation email from info@CrossLoop.com might have been blocked by your spam filter and the verification email may have been placed in your spam folder. In order to correct this problem you should:

If you find the email

1. In your email client / site, add CrossLoop.com to your safe senders list (this will allow you to receive future communications from us)
2. Click on the link or copy and paste the verification URL to your browser's address bar
3. Log in to your account on our web site

If you don't find the email

1. In your email client / site, add CrossLoop.com to your safe senders list (this will allow you to receive future communications from us)
2. Log in to your account on our web site
3. When you log in you will receive the following prompt:
4. Click on "here"

If these steps fail to allow you to verify your email, please email us so that we can re-send it.
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Forgotten Password

You can choose a new password by following these steps:

1. Click here to retrieve your password
2. Enter the email address you used when you created your CrossLoop account
3. Provide the answer to your hint question
4. Choose a new password

If you have also forgotten the answer to your password hint, please email us from the email address you used when you created your CrossLoop account.
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Troubleshooting: Can't Connect

The vast majority of the time a failed or slow CrossLoop connection is caused by firewall/security software blocking files that are necessary for the CrossLoop application to function. The three files that need to run are:

• CrossLoopconnect.exe
• winvnc.exe
• vncviewer.exe

How to solve this problem:

• If your security software asks you if you want to allow these files to run, answer "Always Allow"


• If your security Firewall/security software is blocking the files without asking you, you need to find the section of your security software that contains the list of programs to allow or block and make sure CrossLoopConnect.exe, Winvnc.exe and VncViewer.exe are allowed to run. Here is a great online resource that explains how to allow a program internet access for the most popular firewalls.


• If you are using Windows Vista on the Share computer a slow connection could be caused by Windows Defender placing TightVNC in quarantine. When this happens performance will be very slow and erratic. To solve this problem follow these steps:
  1. Open Windows Defender
  2. Click on the "Tools" menu item at the top of the page
  3. Open "Quarantine"
  4. If you see RemoteAdminTightVNC in quarantine please change the action to take to "Allow"

If you are certain that the connection problem is not being caused by security software, please contact us through our online support forum here and provide as detailed a description as possible of both computers and the time when you experienced the problem.
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Troubleshooting: Connection Drops

These are the known reasons CrossLoop would disconnect in the middle of a session:

Windows Vista User Account Controls are active
Windows Vista has a new security feature called "User Account Control" that can help prevent unauthorized changes to your computer. UAC does this by asking you for permission or an administrator password before performing actions that could potentially affect your computer's operation or that change settings that affect other users. Unfortunately, this message and request for approval displays even if you are logged in as a user with Admin rights. When this message is displayed the CrossLoop application is immediately disconnected. In order to solve this issue you can follow these steps:

1. Open the Control Panel
2. Open User Accounts and Family Safety
3. Open User Accounts
4. Turn User Account Control off (This will require a reboot)

One of the computers has gone into Hibernate or Sleep mode
To prevent your computer from hibernating and therefore interfering with your session follow these steps:

1. Open the control panel
2. Open the power options properties
3. Change the options for system standby an system hibernates to "Never"
4. Click on "Apply"

One of the computers' screensaver has come on
Windows screen saver will cause the CrossLoop application to disconnect if you have it set to "Display welcome screen on resume". Other screensavers may also interfere with the CrossLoop application.  In order to prevent this issue you can follow these steps:

1. Open the control panel
2. Open the display properties
3. Click on the Screen Saver tab
4. Increase the wait time before the screen saver starts or select "None" as the screen saver
5. Click on "Apply"

The final reason we have identified is a prolonged interruption in internet connectivity in either computer. If none of these issues explains your disconnects, please contact us through our online support forum here providing as detailed a description as possible of both computers and the time when you experienced the problem.
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Troubleshooting: Slow Connection Speed

You can adjust the image quality to speed up performance. In order to do so you should follow these steps:

1. Before establishing the connection click on the gear icon on the access computer see below:
2. Click on "Change Image Quality" from the menu
3. Set it to low image quality to speed up performance

   
   Once you make this change it will remain in that mode until you change it again.

Of course it may work better if you can solve the root problem that is causing the slow connection speed. These are the problems that lead to slow speeds with the CrossLoop application:

Problems with Firewall/Adware/Spyware programs
For CrossLoop to run properly you need to find the section of your security software that contains the list of programs to allow or block and make sure CrossLoopConnect.exe, Winvnc.exe and VncViewer.exe are allowed to run.

Unable to establish a Peer to Peer connection
CrossLoop's Peer to Peer connection connects the two computers directly without going through any other server and this is the fastest type of connection.  The CrossLoop application will always attempt to establish a Peer to peer connection between the two computers. If a "Peer to Peer" connection is not possible it will create a "Relay" connection and all information will go through our server.
If you are experiencing a slow connection speed you are probably using a relay connection.  In order to find out whether this is the case you can follow these steps:

1. Connect to another computer
2. Click on the CrossLoop Icon in the upper left corner of the CrossLoop application
3. Choose "About" from the drop down menu


If there is a P2P section at the bottom of the about screen, you have a P2P connection. See below example:

If you can't establish a Peer to Peer connection please contact us through our online support forum hereproviding as detailed a description as possible of both computers and the time when you experienced the problem, and we might be able to find out why you can't.

Conflict with another program
CrossLoop installs and uses TightVNC which could conflict with any other running VNC program on either computer you are using in the CrossLoop connection.  Make sure you turn off any other application that uses TightVNC while you are running CrossLoop.

Slow internet connection
This one is pretty obvious: if you have a slow internet connection, or if you have programs opened that utilize a lot of bandwidth, CrossLoop can't provide the best performance.  To check your speed go to www.speedtest.net and test your speed.  We recommend broadband, but CrossLoop does work on some dial-ups if it's a reliable connection.
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Security Warnings

These are some of the most common security concerns with the CrossLoop application:

Security software warnings
The "Job" of Firewall/Security software is to notify the User when a new program or file is trying to access the internet and give them the option to "Allow" it to run and access the internet or "Deny" it access.

CrossLoop uses VIPTunnel technology and TightVNC for remote control and screen display. Some security programs flag files with VNC and VIP in their names and bring them to the user's attention as a possible threat.

Since CrossLoop is a remote control program and it must access the internet to function the user needs to configure their Security software to "Allow" CrossLoopConnect.exe, WinVnc.exe and VncViewer.exe to run and access the internet. Some programs report vipun.dll and Vnchooks.dll during the install of CrossLoop so you must configure your firewall to allow these files. Here is a great online resource that explains how to allow a program internet access for the most popular firewalls.

Since the VNC files may be used by other software your firewall may continue to alert you about these files. We have built in security into our model unlike other applications and you can read more about it in our Security section. There are many thousands of people using CrossLoop in over 140 countries and security is important to us, so you can safely allow CrossLoop's files.

If your security software automatically deletes or quarantines files without asking you if you want to allow them to run you should report that action to the security software company as a bug.

Containing viruses
CrossLoop does not contain any virus of any kind. A connection cannot be established with CrossLoop unless a user is present at both computers to initiate a connection and the user of the Share computer must also click on the "Allow" or "Deny" button of a confirmation screen before control is given.   You can safely decline any potential warnings you receive about viruses.

Getting viruses
The only information transferred between the computers during a normal session is the pixels being displayed on the screen, mouse operations, and keystrokes. No file data is ever transferred between the computers except if you explicitly send files using our file sharing option.

Our latest version of CrossLoop supports file transfer.  This process could be vulnerable to spreading a virus if the file transfer operation was used to copy an infected file from one computer to another.  We display a warning to this effect in a dialog if the user initiates a file transfer.

If you still have concerns please read the help section referring to security.
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Troubleshooting: Problems with Vista UAC

Windows Vista has a new security feature called "User Account Control" that can help prevent unauthorized changes to your computer. UAC does this by asking you for permission or an administrator password before performing actions that could potentially affect your computer's operation or that change settings that affect other users. Unfortunately, this message and request for approval displays even if you are logged in as a user with Admin rights. When this message is displayed the CrossLoop application is immediately disconnected. This is an important feature of the security model for Windows Vista and is the default configuration.

The application provides improved Vista UAC handling. When the Windows Vista UAC message is displayed and CrossLoop disconnects enabled, the connection between the Access and Share computers is lost if an action taken on the Share computer results in a UAC prompt to Continue or Cancel.

New UAC improvement for CrossLoop Application version 2.11 and newer: CrossLoop automatically reconnects once the customer accepts the UAC prompt message.

Our primary objective in making this improvement was to ensure that CrossLoop does not compromise the security of the Shared computer. The following sequence is the way in which CrossLoop handles UAC prompts:

• • The sequence begins with a CrossLoop session in which a Helper is working on a Customer's computer running Windows Vista with UAC enabled
    
    
  • During the session when the Helper or Customer click on a UAC protected function such as changing User Account Settings, Windows prompts the Customer with following message and options to Continue or Cancel:
    
    
    
  
  
  
  When the UAC prompt is shown on the Customer's computer, Windows has disconnected the connection to the Helper and the Helper will receive the following message:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Helper should instruct the Customer to click "Continue" and CrossLoop will automatically reconnect to the Helper. If the Customer clicks on Cancel CrossLoop will also reconnect the session, but Windows will not grant access to the function.
  
  CrossLoop continues to require Customers to take this action in order to preserve our security model. where the Customer is physically present on the Share computer and provides access to the Helper.

For a long session where the UAC may appear several times, users can turn off UAC. However this requires a reboot. The CrossLoop Application version 2.51 and newer supports reconnect on reboot that simplifies this process.

To turn off UAC, follow these steps:

1. Open the Control Panel
2. Open User Accounts and Family Safety
3. Open User Accounts
4. Turn User Account Control off (Windows will prompt for a reboot)

If you would rather not turn UAC off you can follow this link to the How-To Geek's web page to find out more about UAC and download a registry editor file that will disable the UAC prompt for Admin users. This option does not require a reboot.

Other than this issue CrossLoop should work fine on Vista as long as you configure the Firewall/Security software to Allow CrossLoopconnect.exe, Winvnc.exe and Vncviewer.exe to run and access the internet.
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Can't install the CrossLoop Application

In order to use the CrossLoop application you must be an administrator of your computer. If you attempt to install the program without having an administrator account you will receive the following error message:

CrossLoop installs and uses TightVNC which must be able to write to the Windows Registry and it also uses the registry to remember certain settings and keep statistics.  If you receive an access denied message on installation either login to your computer as an administrator or speak with your network administrator to allow access or install CrossLoop.
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Mac Support

CrossLoop is publicly available for Mac as a beta version for anyone to seamlessly share desktops across Windows and the Mac OS X! We are promoting Mac services here. If you want to download the application please go to our download page.
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Deleting my CrossLoop Account

Please email us from the email address that you used to sign up for your CrossLoop account indicating that you want your account removed and we'll eliminate your account.
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