A friend wants to do some work on a PC in an office in another part of town (running an accounting program, etc).

I used PCAnywhere for DOS long, long ago for this, so I want something of similar functionality for Windows that runs over the internet.

I've found this Wiki page on "Comparison_of_remote_desktop_software" which looks useful, but I wonder if anyone can give recommendations. It should be:

Free
Easy to install
Reasonably secure
Runs on Win XP, or 2k, and would be nice if also on Mac OSX.

Thanks...

https://secure.logmein.com/home.asp

LogMeIn seems to do exactly what you're looking for. I've used it on a number of systems, and it's more or less seemless.

Teamviewer is good too.
It even give you the option to run without installation.

Cheers

Whats wrong with the RemoteDesktop built into Windows?

Thanks, tried this.

Very easy to install, no restrictions.
Even has a Mac client.

You could also try Mesh from MS Live http://www.mesh.com it gives you 5gb free of storage to store files to sync back and forth between different PCs AND it also has a built it remote desktop tool. It will let you connect to any of the machines on your Mesh network.

PS. Its all free