Windows Live Messenger and Remote Assistance

I have Windows XP SP2 with and using Windows Messenger 4 version. A friend is also running Windows XP SP2 but download and installed Windows Live Messenger 8.1 version. There are some problems in his system and I was trying to connect with his computer using Remote Assistance. When connection problems started then my research showed that WLM does not have Remote Assitance capabilities. I have checked this board and came across similar article but want some solutions. It was recommended to download and install Windows Messenger 5.1. The issue now is should WLM be uninstalled or can it co-exist with WM 5.1?? Is it possible to use Remote Assistance with WM 5.1 ? Thanks for any answers

I think that Windows Live Messenger comes with remote assistance and it works fine

Actually a windows vista machine can get remote assistance from an XP machine. I always have trouble between vista home and vista ultimate. It always requests the creation of a passcode or passcode file which never seems to work. So I end up using an XP box instead of my vista ultimate box to help others who are using vista.