Vista - trying to join vista machine to a workgroup

i am so frustrated. i hope i can find some help here. i have a laptop with xp
media which is wirelessly connected and a desktop with vista connected with
ethernet. i'm using a linksys wrt54g router.

i have internet up and running perfectly on both of them, i just can't get
the filesharing to work.

i have both machines logged in with the same username and password. my
workgroup is named. i see the laptop icon on the vista machine but it won't
connect- says to check the spelling of the name or call my administrator.

the laptop recognizes the pc, but won't accept the username/password.

i've had success pinging the pc from the laptop, but the ping from the pc to
the laptop times out.

i've tried enabling the netbios over the ip, which worked for someone else
here, but to no avail.

any other suggestions? this is the first time i've done anything like this,
so if i'm missing anything or saying something wrong, please let me know.
thank you in advance for any ideas you can toss out to me!

What's the system error if using net view \\remotecomputeripaddress?

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
"magpiefound" <magpiefound@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:F4E5C534-0ECE-4506-A642-8D374A83F15A@microsoft.com...
i am so frustrated. i hope i can find some help here. i have a laptop with xp
media which is wirelessly connected and a desktop with vista connected with
ethernet. i'm using a linksys wrt54g router.

i have internet up and running perfectly on both of them, i just can't get
the filesharing to work.

i have both machines logged in with the same username and password. my
workgroup is named. i see the laptop icon on the vista machine but it won't
connect- says to check the spelling of the name or call my administrator.

the laptop recognizes the pc, but won't accept the username/password.

i've had success pinging the pc from the laptop, but the ping from the pc to
the laptop times out.

i've tried enabling the netbios over the ip, which worked for someone else
here, but to no avail.

any other suggestions? this is the first time i've done anything like this,
so if i'm missing anything or saying something wrong, please let me know.
thank you in advance for any ideas you can toss out to me!