Right then, a friend of mine has called me over to his place today to help connect two laptops. They have a connecting cable, and they’ve managed to connect the two laptops, but they don’t know how to transfer stuff.
Now according to me, all that needs to be done is to go into Network Neighbourhood, get that laptop’s icon, and get the work done.. hardly needs anything else done to it, does it?
Or is something else required, some sort of configuration? Perhaps Add New Hardware or something?
Actually, the laptop should recognise the other as a removable drive or device. Then you can drag and drop stuff…
Err… What kind of connecting cable is it?
Serial, USB, or LAN (Ethernet)? 
Crossover Ethernet cable?
If so, read this:
Damn.. do you guys use Google at all?
Just use a cross cable, assign two ips like 192.168.31.1/192.168.31.2 and u have a network between them 
When it comes to Technology Questions, TechEnclave is my Google.
Thanks for the help guys. 
Simple solution
Assign Ip address to both the laptops
192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2 and share the folders which you need to tranfer from one to another…
As the guys mentioned cross over cable and Assign the IP’s, make sure you have installed Microsoft file and printer sharing services.. Should be installed in XP pro by default.
How will I assign IP’s to the two laptops?
Edit : Doh, dumb question. Network Neighbourhood and then IP, yeah.
No need for any gateway and DNS entries right?
No need. Rightclick network neighbourhood and go to properties. It’ll display an icon for ur connection. There click properties, then TCP/IP properties and set to whatever ip u like. No need for DNS/gateway.
Hey guys nither laptop of mine is seeing each other, I have followed your guidelines and have a transfer cable (ethernet) I am trying to use the cd rom of one to load a program onto the other.
1 Is a Compaq Presario and the other is a Toshiba R100 slimline
the default windows firewall mightbe preventing the connx to take place…enable file and printer sharing from the firewall settings. to do the same click on the computer icon in the system tray/network neighborhood…click properties–go to advanced tab-select windows firewall settings - select exceptions tab…you should check the box ‘file and printer sharing’ and click ok. this shud solve ur problem.
after connecting the lappys and assigning IPs have u tried pinging each other?..if you are able to ping then u don’t have any issues…else do what i have suggested above…try accessing the other lappy through \ipaddress