hellsbrink, yes thanks, I saw that.
Both laptops have unused RJ45 ports - in my simple mind I thought that it would be as easy as connecting them both with a crossover cable, then being able to use 'My Computer' to find the 'other' computer's C-drive and thence copying files by copy-and-paste.
If it really involves anything much more complicated than that, I reckon I'll stick to the simple computer A to USB stick to computer B method!