Question : How can I get two PCs to connect via Ethernet crossover cable RELIABLY?

Hello - I have two PCs  - a laptop and a desktop, which I connect together via fast Ethernet and crossover cable (I back up the laptop onto the desktop every day). The desktop is not part of a workgroup; the laptop is part of a domain. I have a share set up on the laptop and I map to this from the desktop. When it connects, it works fine; but boy is it a pain to get it to work. I have to retry the connect many many times - sometimes hundreds - before it works (the error comes up as "network drive not found"). Why is this? By the way both machines are connected wirelessly to a router and online; but I don't want to connect them together via the wireless LAN because it's too slow to transfer the amount of data that I do. but could this be why? I guess what I want to do is to reserve the Ethernet ports for that connection, but I don't know how to do that.

One other problem is that once it does connect, it drops if idle for more than a few minutes. How can I get it to stay connected?

Other info: laptop is XP SP1; desktop is XP SP2. Laptop is a business machine (which is why it is part of a domain) but I do have administrator rights on it.


Any help gratefully accepted!

Answer : How can I get two PCs to connect via Ethernet crossover cable RELIABLY?

Set a user account on desktop as administrator and password
then try to connected from laptop using desktop account