Remote Desktop Connection questions...

I'm a little new to this, so be nice. I have a few friends that I have been helping with their troubled computers. Well, I'm leaving soon and they want to be able to let me log on into and work on their computer while I'm a state away by taking control of their computer remotely.

My question is, how?

I briefly looked over the remote desktop connection that's build into windows XP, but I thought I read that it was only from a XP Pro computer that you can use it to log into a XP home (Not XP home to XP home).

Is there another program that I might be able to use to do this? Maybe one that's easy to use?

 

Free and Easy: tightvnc
It's lacking encryption, so it's not to be used in professional environments over the internet (the password is sent encrypted).
Nice part: it's available on windows, linux and java.

Alternative (also vnc based) tridiavnc, it seems to offer encryption, but I have no experience with it (edit: pro offers encryption, regular version no longer supported, Realvnc could be a better bet, the personal version offering encryption, the free one is without)

Radmin is a commercial tool, as is Symantec pcanywhere.
You could think about using Back Orifice, but most antivirus scanners think it is malware. I don't know if it offers encryption, but it's free and dangerous and opens cd trays

(errr sorry, this last bit of advise is not meant to be taken very seriously )