Networking Vista and XP = bleh

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needhelpinnz

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So I have a desktop XP Home SP2 and a Vista laptop that I'm trying to transfer files between. Setup the workgroup name to be the same, gave each computer individual names, enabled file sharing, plugged them in, restarted, but still nothing.

On the XP machine, it will say "acquiring network address" and it sits there for a while until it tells me there is limited or no connectivity. the lights on the back are also just orange, no green, whereas my laptop LAN port has both green and orange lights, even though both computers say limited or no connectivity.

I'm pretty new with all this network stuff and tried following a few guides online to get these two to talk to each other, but just can't get past this. any help would be appreciated. thanks.

A few questions I found from some other posts that I thought might help if answered:

Just connecting the two computers directly without a router or hub, not sure if the cable I have is crossover or not. Is there a way to tell?

Do you have DSL or Cable Modem? Neither
Do you have Router? No
Do you have a switch or hub? No
Do you have crossover cables? Not sure

How do you have your network setup? Desktop ethernet connected to laptop ethernet
Are you using wireless laptop? has the ability but I disabled it
Are you using wired or wireless desktop? wired
 
Do you have crossover cables? Not sure
I'd say you don't

All supplied Ethernat cables (with modems and computers etc are Patch)

To see if you do:

Hold both ends up, side by side, facing the same way (basically exactly the same way)
Looking at the tiny internal cable colors, all the colors will be in the exact same sequence - that's a patch
But if two of the colored wires are reversed (or not in sequence basically) it's a crossover

That's the easiest way to tell.

Anyway please buy a Cross-Over Ethernet cable
 
direct attachment using ICS looks like
Code:
modem---systemA----systemB
yes it;s cheap. it also is a poor performer AND requires both system running if systemB is to have Internet access.
you would be much happier with a router (not a hub, not a switch) like this
Code:
modem ---- router
               |
               +---- systemA
               |
               +---- systemB
Either system is Independent of the other for Internet access and both are necessary
only for Print/File sharing
 
with a router (not a hub, not a switch)
Yes that uses patch
But you could use a hub too? Not sure why not.

Anyway, to just do one job of linking computers via Ethernet, is by cross-over
I have this 20Mtr one, that I use probably once a year!
 
for anyone needing help (since I know sometime I get upset when people don't post how things went in their threads), the problem did turn out to be the crossover cable. once I got that, i was able to transfer files.

thanks to you guy for giving me a hand
 
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