I have a close friend who frequently asks me for help when she and her
husband foul up their machines. Last time, they had left field so screwed up
NOBODY could play it! It took me quite some time to identify the inections,
download appropriate software, and remove the viruses. I moved them into
Windows OneCare 'cause they eventually develope performance issues as well.
So far, all's well... I think.

They want me to show them how to copy a recording of a voice from a tape so
I've got to make the 25 mile trip... and return. I know XP (both our
machines are running XP; mine Professional but their's is HE I think).

Anyway, the thought occurred to me that maybe (and I'm not a guru) I could
offer some assistance from time to time by hooking up to their machine. If
nothing else, the experience would be interesting; purely self satisfying
'cause I have no other foreseeable use for the feature. I'm retired, able to
get myself out of most of my compuer jams myself, but not engaged in fixing
other peoples machines except a few close friends who ask from time to time.

My concern is, if I do take the time to learn how to lay the groundwork to
access my friend's machine remotely, am I exposing myself to the same
infections they may have on their machines? I assume so but perhaps someone
who does this often can comment on how they protect themselves. My defense
is cable/router/switch/ Windows firewall/ NOD32 antivirus and Windows
Defender. I run Spybot from time to time and keep telling myself I'm going
to research if there's a way to make Spybot run at startup and stay running
throughout a session but I never get around to it. I think that feature is
available with the paid version of Spybot ... or do I have that confused
with Ad-Aware... which I never did reload on this machine after I flatted
and rebuilt the harddrive last Summer. That's when I enstalled Windows
Defender I believe.