A universal in-vehicle remote control automatically assists in appliance activation configuration. The appliance responds to a radio frequency activation signal having characteristics represented by one of a plurality of activation schemes. The user is automatically prompted to select one of a plurality of subsets of possible activation schemes. For each activation scheme in the subset, an activation signal is transmitted. User input is received indicating whether or not at least one transmitted activation signal successfully activates the appliance. If the user input indicates success, data representing the activation scheme is associated with a user activation input channel.