I have a PC running Win98SE at home, and a laptop running W2K from work (I am a member of administrator group on the laptop). I failed to connect them together with a crossover cable using TCP/IP while keeping the domain settings unchanged. The laptop is working fine at work by obtaining an IP address automatically. However, a static IP addr is used (192.168.1.2) with subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. The IP addr of the Win98SE is set to 192.168.1.1 with the same subnet mask. Domain name is set to the same as on the laptop. The first time when I logged onto the Win98SE machine using the same username/password as I used with the laptop, the Win98SE created a new user account, and I can ping the other machine from either. The both machines list the other machine in Network Places/Network Neighbourhood, however, when click on a shared directory of the other machine, I got a message saying "Can't find a server to verify the domain password". Since then, everytime when I logg onto the Win98SE machine, I get the same message and the connection is lost (I can't ping the other machine or see it in Network Places/Neighbourhood). Could anybody help me? Thank you.

On the 98 machine, do you have "log on to a Windows NT Domain" checked in the properties of client for microsoft networks?? Uncheck it if so, and see what happens.

yes, "log on to a Windows NT Domain" is checked and the domain name is set to the same as on the laptop. This property was not checked previously, and the both machines cannot see each other in Network Places/Neighbourhood, and they cannot ping each other. All setup guides I can find in the internet suggest that the both machine should use the same workgroup name and uncheck this property, however this implies that I should not use the domain network login for which I don't have the permission to do so (I actually did once, and ended up with being locked up after restart. Therefore I am looking for alternative solution. Thank you for your comments, and any more?