Home network - Desktop to Laptop

Hi folks,

I've had a quick search of previous topics and tried some of the things I thought were relevant, but to no avail.

Here's my problem. I've got a desktop with two LAN connections on the motherboard (and a firewire). A DVB satellite card also appears as a network connection as this is how I recieve my broadband.

The laptop has a LAN connection and a firewire.

I've connected the two directly with a crossover cable and ran the network connection wizard.

Both show connected at 100Mbps in the icon tray.

My network places on the desktop only shows the desktop computer. At one point it was showing the laptop as well but wouldn't give me access (Path could not be found), but I don't seem to get that now.

The laptop won't even let me see My Network places, saying the network is unaccessible and I may not have permission to use the network resource.

Oddly though when I ping the laptop from the desktop it times out each time. 4 packets, 4 loss, 100% loss. Pinging the desktop from the laptop results in 100% transmisssion, all less than 1ms

All I want to do is transfer some files from the desktop to the laptop.

Any ideas?

cheers,

daviec.

 

What operating systems?

 

Ooh sorry.

Both XP Home.

 

- log on to both computers and make sure you have a NON BLANK password on both.
- if the logon is the exact same for both, nothing more to do. If not, the Guest account is enabled by default on XP-Home and should take care of the rest.
- Client for Microsoft Networks installed/enabled.
- File & print sharing enabled
- Share something on each PC. Folder, file, printer, whatever.

Things should now work fine. If My Network Places or Computers Near Me or Network Neighborhood (same thing, different possible names) is still not doing properly, try other ways of connecting.

For instance, if you are logged on to PC2 and PC1 has a share named myshare then you should be able to do
start~run~\\PC1\myshare from PC2 and have a Windows Explorer window open with that share displayed.

With only the two computers, no need to ever rely on the Network Neighborhood thing. You can map (windows explorer~tools~map network drive) your shares if you need them often or do start~run~.... if not. Connect to a network printer the same way except it will be a perm. connection but set it up by typing in the specifics rather than browsing. PC1 has MyPrinter so from PC2 when you are asked for the location of the network printer, \\PC1\MyPrinter should connect you right up.