Vista - Network won't identify correct machines

OK, this may be a long post, but please bear with me. The way I see it, the more info I give the more likely a good fix .

I recently bought a laptop, and guessed I'd sort out a network with the existing comp (how hard can it be? )

I have internet access on main PC (Cat V wired), and laptop (wireless), but when I open network and sharing centre to try to access "the other" comp, the network won't show the other comp. From my laptop I have "laptop"(This Computer) - "Office" - "Internet". When I click on "Office" to show the network I get a list with "laptop", Siemens SE572 Wireless Router & Orb: Office. The first 2 listings are correct, but Orb: Office isn't, and it also shows as a Windows Media Player, I've tried everything I can think of but can't get rid of the "Orb: Office", which seems to be stopping my PC and laptop talking to each other.

If I haven't bored you to death by now, any assitance would be VERY much appreciated, as I'm gonna quickly get sick of having to drop everything onto a memory stick, and transferring to main pc to print etc.

Thanks in anticipation.

orb? try uninstalling it and running a spyware scan on both computers it may be nothing,are bith PC's on the same workgroup? you can check this by going to
start->right click computer->prporties and scrolling to the bottom they should both be the same default is WORKGROUP

There is no 'Orb' I searched everywhere, so I can't uninstall it. I run full AVG Pro daily on the comp that Orb is showing on. (btw it's Orb as in media sharing Orb).

Yep both comps are in same workgroup.

I'm still at a loss as to what to do

hmmm...is you laptop vista or xp?
vista and xp arn't realy fun to play with when networking as for that orb thing i have no idea i ask around for you.if its vista to xp networking,download this it helped my loads when i was vista to xp networking only download on the xp computer not vista
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Both machines are vista.

I'm tearing my hair out with this one. Usually I can sort these things out after a few hours, and think "OMG... that was really easy actually".. this problem has me V confused.

Any more assistance will be much appreciated.

P.S. checked both machines in Control Panel > System, both are showing to be in same workgroup, but desktop pc doesn't find laptop at all on network, and laptop only finds "Orb: Office" which it says is a media device. I restarted after assigning primary DNS suffix's to desktop and laptop, laptop then showed desktop in network... I cheered... then the desktop dissappeared.

So in short I still have the same problem.

try going to network and sharing center enable all and disable password protected sharing also i think on vista you cant shar or anything unless its a protected network.