Problem connecting to my laptop

[cscsonline]

Situation is:
Desktop has 2 NICs - one attached to ADSL router with CAT 5 cable
and the other attached to my notebook with a crossover cable.
I have created a Home Network and can see the notebook on the desktop and vice versa.
Problem is:
When I click on the desktop icon on the notebook, it asks me for a password for the Guest account, which is not activated on the desktop and even if it was, has no password. My user account has a password as does the Administrator account but neither password works. I have no option to change from the Guest account as this field is greyed out.
When I try to access the notebook on the desktop, it tells me that I don't have permission to do this although I have allowed access to the IP address (169.254.171.212) in Norton Internet Security.
I tried using CAT 5 cable from the notebook to the router instead of crossover cable but it makes no difference.
Can anyone suggest what may the problem and suggest a solution?
Tnaks in advance.

 

[Mithrilhall]

Right-click "My Computer" and choose "Map Network Drive...".

Pick a drive letter.

For "Folder" type:

\\<IPAdressGoesHere>\C$


So it's...backslash, backslash, the ip address of the computer you want to connect to, backslash, the Drive of the computer you want to connect to, Dollar sign (with no space in front of it).

You should get prompted for a username/password. Use the username/password you would log into the computer with.

 

[TerryNet]

Possible problems:

a. The "don't have permission" may be because of the Norton firewall; about the only way to be sure is to uninstall Norton to see if it makes a difference.

b. If Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP Pro you may have a problem with permissions or with userids/passwords.

c. If Windows XP Home, or Windows XP Pro and using Simple File Sharing, you may have corruption on one or both machines. Take a look at this thread and what it references: http://forums.techguy.org/t376628.html (there's also more about (a) and (b) in this).

Sorry about all the pointers you encountered or will encounter, but there's a lot of information in those threads that probably pertains to your problem.