Windows XP Remote Assistance - Viruses

[Yownanymous]

A friend of mine has a virus (WinPC Defender). We both have Windows XP. I want to do remote assistance to help get rid of it. But is it possible to get the same virus over remote-assistance?

Please, don't tell me just to use Linux, it's quite childish.

[Yownanymous]

Bump?

[pwnst*r]

i don't know for sure, but i'd side with "probable". of course, make sure your firewall is up and your AV is up-to-date.

[Yownanymous]

My alternative is to use Ubuntu's remote assistance, but how would I connect to an XP machine with that?

(Preferably something not too hard for my friend)

[jflaker]

Is the other person behind a router? If so, you will need to have them open up a port forward to their IP. Remote assistance uses port 3389....

ALSO, they need to open this port on XP's firewall.

[linsux]

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not aware of any viruses that have the ability to spread through RA. I've cleaned viruses and done stuff like this through RA before and nothing has happened to my PC. (I don't run anti-virus or any of that stuff either.) Though, to be on the safe side you might want to make sure you have anti-virus software that's capable of detecting the virus at hand, just in case.