Noob needs help!

[Aeon Flux]

All right. This may sound weird. Im not new to computers at all. Anything hardware and most software I can setup. Networks I can set up the hardware without a problem. But heres the silly part. I never bothered to learn any of the protocols. I cant get my two computers networked properly to do file sharing and printer sharing. Im running windows XP. I knows XP comes with that stupid network wizard but it doesnt work worth a damn.(If I offend anyone by swaring I am sorry. I've just never been one to not speak what was on my mind) So my question to anyone is what protocol should I use to get both computers to recgonize that each other are there and be able to see the files. I dont want log in services or anything. I just want to be able to grabd files off of my fiances computer and vice versa and use her printer. We are both running windows XP PRO and both are connected in to a 16 port cascading hub for internet use. Thanks for all your help in advance.

[Deathknight]

TCP/IP should be the only protocol you need. When you configure tcp/ip you will need to either chose static IP addresses or you will need to use DHCP to dynamically obtain an address. I gotta assume that you use these machines on the internet as well, and this is the same protocol that you use. That said you already should have tcp/ip configured on your machines. If your ISP uses DHCP you don't want to go changing the settings or you won't be able to connect to the internet. What you want is either a cable/dsl router or some software that will act as a DHCP server and a router for you (assuming you actually want to share an internet connection?).

Now if you both have dialup modems(instead of sharing cable or dsl) then it gets a whole lot easier. Configure both your machines with static IP addresses (maybe 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2) and you will be in business.

[AMD'er]

make sure that the XP Pro's firewall is not activiated and that should help...I personally ran the wizard a couple of times and everything worked great.