Easy? Probably not!
The best advice is to search the MS site for Network, Vista, XP and trawl the knowledge base. They have some useful guides for setting up home and wifi networks.
There's some useful information in the FAQs on this forum.
Bear in mind that the basic principles of IP networking don't change just because one PC is running Vista. MS just seem to want to make it appear so with Vista.
Bottom line:
- Both PCs need to be on the same shared access medium, be it wired or wireless.
- Both PCs need to be on the same IP network.
- Both PCs need to have File and Printer Sharing enabled (whatever it's actually called).
- Both PCs need to have their firewalls configured to allow IP traffic from each other to pass in and out.
- You need to create Shares and allocate appropriate access rights.
- You may also need to assign NTFS security permissions.
The above are essential (except the last - XP home doesn't support it, neither does FAT32).
Nice to have (but NOT essential):
- Both PCs in same workgroup
- Same account name on both PCs
It just makes life slightly easier!
SD