I've read numerous articles on network and still don't understand how to get my vista laptop networked to my PC. My XP machine is hardwired while the laptop is wireless. The are no user accounts on the XP, as I am the only user and I don't want to be bother having to login. (By the way, how in the world do you disable this user account business in Vista?) I can see the PC on the network, but I can't access any of the shared folders. I have no idea what the problem is and no idea how to find out. Microsoft's unwillingness to supply a step-by-step tutorial on networking is astounding since I'm willing to bet that there are millions of people trying to do what I am trying to do. And judging from internet chatter, most are just as confused and have wasted as much time on this as I. They continually make their software more and more complex add more and more unwanted features will simultaneously decreasing the amount of documentation available. It is very very frustrating. I'm stuck with Microsoft now, but will bolt the first chance that I can. I will be Novell all over again - a company who prospered selling vital but very difficult to use software that collapsed when more usable competition became available.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/setup/default.mspx http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/networking.mspx The first link's "How to set up your computer for home networking" section has details on the Windows XP end of things. The 2nd link has Vista information.