Need advice ON networking 2 Computers Together

[rndthm]

I am trying to help my sister in law network 2 computers together but I have never tried this before and need a little advice? One computer is a desktop running xp connected directly to a router the other computer is a laptop running xp connected to the router by a wireless connection. They have dsl and share the internet connection they want each computer to be able to access each other and be able to send files from one computer to the other and they also want to be able to use both computers to use just the one printer that they have, the printer is connected directly to the desktop. Is there any more hardware that they need to purchase? or is it simply some setting changes that need to be done? Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[PrntRhd]

A wireless print server device to connect the printer to the network would allow either PC to access the printer without requiring the desktop to be booted and that would be nice, depending on what type of printer they have.
Other than that, the hardware should be sufficient.
Is this XP Pro on both?

[rndthm]

No.....niether one is pro. Right now both share the dsl connection and now they would like to transfer files from one computer to the other computer and be able to print documents from the laptop to the printer that is connected to the desktop.

[Erik]

To be able to transfer files you should just have to enable File and Printer Sharing in the Network Setup Wizard. I haven't done this in XP Home, but as far as I know the choices are either allow sharing or disable it. No real security options, and everything is done through the guest account.

You ould use a print server to share the printer, but it ins't necessary. As long as the printer is connected to the wired PC, and that PC is on whenever you want to print from the laptop you can use the PC as the server. There are a few problems with this method though, but small ones. The PC that the printer is connected to will always need to be on in order to print. Also the printer will need to be connected physically to one of the PCs, which could be an annoyance to the person using that PC.

[rndthm]

She told me the other day that she tried the option of enabling file and print sharing in the network setup wizard and it did not work so before I go over and see what I can do I wanted to check on here to get some advice from others to see if I should try something different or if there is any special settings to use and/or more hardware/software to buy.
The printer is connected physically directly to the desktop and the desktop they always leave on and never shut down.
I am hoping this is not going to be to hard to do. I was wanting to do the same thing here at my house with a laptop just running xp but I have never really got involved with doing a network before so this is kinda new to me.

[rndthm]

Also when I go to run the network setup wizard should I run it only on one computer or both? should I do the desktop first or the laptop first?

[Erik]

You will need to run the Wizard on all of the PCs you want networked, and enable File and Printer sharing on all of them as well. For simplicty you should also check to make sure that they are all in the same workgroup, and change it fomr the MS default name WORKGROUP.

[jlreich]

Yeah you have to make sure they are all the same workgroup name. And as Eric suggested make it something other than the default name for security purposes.

Right click on "My Computer"> computer name tab> change button> put in a name, I think it has to be no more than 8 characters> ok your way out and reboot.

If you want to share files to and from both computers you need to run the networking wizard on both computers. If you just want to be able get access to the desktop from the laptop you only need to do it on the desktop. But you will not be able to access the laptop from the desktop.

Do this for each computer and make sure you have at least one folder on each computer set to share.

To share the printer, install the software for the printer on the machine that is not connected to it directly, Go into "printers and faxes" and add a printer, follow the prompts and browse for the printer on the other computer. You should be good to go.

If you have a firewall you may need to set it to allow "microsoft file and print sharing" when it gives the incoming alert.

This is my first networking post, so if I missed anything or got something wrong, let me know networking gurus. ;)