Vista - Network between Vista 32 home premium and Xp pro (Not the usual problem)

I'm trying to make a standard LAN just for gaming between the 2. The pc has linked to Vista in the past but that was via a router, I then moved and now got my self a lap top. Started the LAN process, setup the lan on the XP, told it what workgroup, told the Vista what workgroup, reset both.

Its running through 2 patch cables and a hub right now and the xp gets a connection fine, but the vista dont even say it has local.

If i ping the xp from the vista it says my laptop IP with the reply from and gives the message - Destination host unreachable,

I've tried with all firewalls off and activated the private network and allowed the options for network discovery and file sharing.

I've even tried manually setting the IP addresses to 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2 and still no luck. The vista wont accept a gateway tho which i always used to set to the pc's own IP when doing LAN.

Anyone have any idea's? been wracking my brain for 2 days on this lol.

Thanks,

Craig.

PS the net con im using is wireless so has nothing to do with the cable'd LAN.

*EDIT* I also have the patch from microsoft for XP to make it easier to see vista computers.

"Destination host unreachable" means the machine won't even bother trying to send a packet because it knows - based on its route table - that it has not been configured with the prerequisite routing information to allow it to get a packet to the intended destination.

The fact that this is apparently happening to you when you've statically configured 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2 as the two IPs suggests to me a far-too-restrictive subnet mask - probably 255.255.255.255.

Can you post the output of ROUTE PRINT from both machines?

i just managed to get it working after alot of messing about, turns out the main port i always used for the past couple of years has died, god knows when so now i had to use and turn on the second lan port on the board, i only figured it out because i was looking over things and noticed the xp pc had 0 sent and received, after a few hours running that was just too weird to be normal in any way, thanks for the reply tho .

it took me wiring up an xp laptop to the pc to even think of checking the sent/received numbers now just to get the 3rd pc on the network lol.

*EDIT* PS, subnet was set to 255.255.255.0