Connecting PC with XP with laptop with Vista!

How do I do it? I have seen people connect two PCs with a Cat-5 cable (which I have bought). My new Inspiron 1720 will be with me in a few days, and I want to transfer data from my old PC (with Winows XP SP2 on it) to the new laptop (with Windows Vista Home Premium). I don't know how to. I have the ports on both the machines.

Also, which services do I need to make sure are running on the old XP desktop? I used blackviper's guide to disable some useless ones, maybe one of them is needed.

I asked for a Vista Easy Transfer cable to be included in my ordered, but was told by the sales rep that it would only conect machines with Vista on it.


Thank you!

 

See, you can't use any ethernet patch cable; you need a crossover cable.

This is how you do it:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/da25b51f-8c3d-e025-74aa-1fa3f29f6cdd1033.mspx

 

I have the same cable that those evil people (electornics department in my college) were using!

Thank you Dave!