Hello, I apologize for the length of this post, just trying to be detailed for you. I have been working on a simple network between my Laptop and my Desktop for a long time now. I have run the network setup on both computers, tried static IPs, automatic IPs, and a combination of both. All I would like to do is setup both computers so I may transfer files between them. I have 2 NICs on the Desktop running XP Pro (one for the internet and one for the network) and one NIC on the Desktop running XP Home. At the moment the Laptop is setup to connect to another computer that connects to the Internet with the IP 192.168.0.2, and the Desktop is setup be the computer that others connect to to get to the Internet and both are in the same workgroup with the IP 192.168.0.1. With these settings the Laptop can see itself and the Desktop in the workgroup, but the Desktop can see neither. I have no idea what I need to do and am getting extremely frustrated. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix my problem, or how to remove all of the current settings and start over please let me know. Thanks, Jonathan

I've had a similar setup, and it worked for me. Things you haven't mentioned: 1) Running any firewalls? (May need to diable fireall or add the 192.168.0.x address range to a safe list.) 2) Is File/Printer sharing enabled on either computer and do at least one folder that is shared? 3) Can you ping the computer's IP addres? Start, Run cmd Then at the command prompt, type ping 192.168.0.2 4) Sometimes XP gets confused when a computer has multiple active NICs. Try disabling the NIC not used for you crossover connection. (However, mine worked fine...) 5) XP is sometimes picky about users/passwords. Create the same user/password on each computer so that if you are ever prompted for a password to access shared folders you have something to type in. 6) Crossover setup I use: Desktop IP: 192.168.0.1 Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 Gateway: 192.168.0.2 (or leave blank) Laptop IP: 192.168.0.2 Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 Gateway: 192.168.0.1 (or leave blank)

Almost forgot: Start, Run, then type in \\192.168.0.1 Start, Run, then type in \\192.168.0.2 Try that on each computer. I've had problems with computers appearing in "My Network Places"

CyberSlug, I tried everything that you have suggested. 1. I don't have any firewalls up. 2. File/Printer Sharing is enabled on both, with the SharedDocs folders still available. 3. I cannot ping the other computer. 4. I disabled the internet NIC, still no success. 5. The usernames/passwords are the same. 6. Attempted same setup, again no success. I also tried you run command suggestion, but again no success. I don't understand what is going wrong, but would like to fix it. If you have anymore suggestions please let me know. Thanks, Jonathan

First rule of troubleshooting: Check the cable! You need a special crossover cable if you are directly connecting the computers. If you are using a hub/switch/router, you can use normal ethernet cables. The software config looks right. If changing the cable does not work, then I don't know what else to try.

CyberSlug, Thanks for your help. I disconnected all of the networking cables from my desktop and just connected the crossover cable and tryed the same settings again. It didn't work again, so I just walked away out of frustration. When I came back about half an hour later it was working without any trouble. I don't get it, but when something works I don't complain. Again thank you for your help.

Sorry, I'm not very used to online chat rooms, but I somehow got to this page: http://computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/ forum/83013.html And found your reply to Jonathan very detailed. I wonder if you can help me: We have three laptops at home: 1) Windows 98, 2) Windows XP and 3) MacOSX We would like to exchange files between them, without going through Internet, just connecting two computers at a time through a crossover cable. For example, the whole morning we have attempted to connect the first two, which should be fully compatible. We want No. 2 to "see" the hard disk of No. 1. We connected the cable and started both computers. We know they are reading each other, because we were prompted to change the IP number of No. 1 first, as it was the same as No. 2. Now that we changed the IP number and changed the default gateway number, nothing happens. None of the two computers shows the other. A couple of months ago we did this and worked immediately, just by connecting both through the crossover cable. Why it didn't work now? Regards, Moro