I have a vista home basic desktop, a windows 7 laptop, and a belkin router for my home network. how do i configure remote desktop to enable these two devices? please help!

Use lowest security that is compatible with both operating systems. For help with router, address support forum of router vendor. Rgds Milos

Hi, To allowed the Remote Desktop, you can try the following steps: 1. Open System by clicking the Start button , right-clicking Computer, and then clicking Properties. 2. Click Remote settings. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. 3. Under Remote Desktop, select one of the three options. 4. Click Select Users. If you're an administrator on the computer, your current user account will automatically be added to the list of remote users and you can skip the next two steps. 5. In the Remote Desktop Users dialog box, click Add. 6. In the Select Users or Groups dialog box, do the following: To specify the search location, click Locations, and then select the location you want to search. In Enter the object names to select, type the name of the user that you want to add, and then click OK. The name will be displayed in the list of users in the Remote Desktop Users dialog box. Click OK, and then click OK again. More detail steps, you can refer to Connect to another computer using Remote Desktop Connection Hope this helps. Vincent Wang TechNet Community Support

First you need to make sure both laptop and desktop can ping each, after that you can enable Remote Desktop to allow remote access. If you want to have more info, take a look on these remote desktop setup articles. Hope this helps.