A friend of mine is in possession of a XP home desktop and a Win 98 2nd Edition desktop. The only internet connection is a simple DSL modem with a power adapter, USB port and one Ethernet jack. Both machines also have NICs onboard. I am simply trying to find the easiest way of networking the two machines with a crossover cable. I'm not even worried about both machines being able to access the internet as long as one of them can and share files with the other. I should be able to simply connect the two and set up a share, correct? Since only one PC will be internet accessible IP addressing should be irrelevant as well. Any input would be greatly appreciated, comments or suggestions, thanks!

Boris

It has been a very long time since I have done this, but I think what you need to do is set up tcp/ip on both systems with a fixed ip address and run a network cable ( a crossover as you said ) between the 2 machines

try making the first address 10.10.10.1 and the mask 255.255.255.0 or 255.255.0.0

one of these masks should work

make the second machine 10.10.10.2

Turn on file and print sharing.

Like I said, I have done this, but it has been awhile

hope this gets you started

kev

kevm, thanks for the suggestion.
I used your IP and subnet settings and things went fine. The XP home machine has two NICs; one goes to a residential DSL line and the other to the win 98 box. My only problem is the win 98 box can't view the workgroup network, BUT I can ping the other computer and share a folder in My Documents to transfer files. I've checked all the file sharing settings I know of. Could this be just because 98 can't look into a XP box? I'm also trying to confirm if it will be possible to share the internet connection so the 98 box can actually surf the web. Any more suggestions would be great, thanks again!

Boris

Glad it helped you. As for the win 98 seeing the win xp. If you want that to happen, you need to login to the win 98 machine, not just cancel out. You need to make the win 98 machine part of the workgroup. Then, you have to have a share drive, or folder on a drive in which to place your shared files. So on the 98 machine, set up client for microsoft networks login and that should get you there.

Kev