Dumb networking questions - usb, microsoft networking, wireless settings etc

Maybe I should break this up and put it in seperate threads - for now I'll just ask away & see what kind of help I get.

I have a new 1545 that I just setup with XP (on a new hard drive, keeping the original Vista drive intact for now which I will get back to later). I have XP all setup and running great, loaded a ton of software, have applied all SP3/recent patches, all the Dell drivers/functions work. It's fantastic. But have a couple things I want to accomplish networking wise.

I have a desktop PC also running XP SP3, with both the desktop and the laptop connected via the same router (I'm using the laptop hardwired in now but wireless also works).

The desktop PC is connected to 2 USB devices that I want to get to via the laptop, one is a Canon color printer and the other is a scanner. The desktop also has an old HP laserjet attached via parallel cable that I want to get from the laptop. I also want to easily share files back & forth between the PCs.

I setup Microsoft networking successfully on both machines and can see the shared folders on each PC from each PC to exchange files. I also installed print drivers on the laptop for use with the 2 printers that attached to the desktop, one the USB Canon color printer and the other an old HP Laserjet that is a parallel connection.

Although Microsoft networking "works" it is slow as hell, primarily in it's browsing type functions, & I'm trying to figure out why. I can print fine (quickly) to the printers from the laptop but if I try to change anything like select one printer vs. another, or any of the print driver preferences (which is impt when printing to the color canon to set the paper type and similar things) it literally takes 3-5 minutes for the driver screen to even come back with the next screen for me to get to. I even tried installing the drivers locally on the laptop and mapping the printers to the network address rather than setting them up as pure "network printers" on the laptop but that makes no difference.

Also as far as sharing files goes, the access copying the files back & forth isn't bad, but it is the act of clicking on the workgroup to see the shared folders that takes effing forever....

Some questions:

(1) Is there something I can tweak on the PCs to get Microsoft networking to work better/quicker?? Just trying to click on the workgroup to get to the shared folders is painfully slow.

(2) If I can't find out how to improve the Microsoft networking speeds, I'd like to switch gears and ask about possible USB solutions. I think I need some kind of switch/hub to share the scanner anyway so might as well share the Canon printer via that too. So - any recommendations for a USB switch type thing (either manual or automatic) to share both the scanner and the Canon color printer for both PCs? I can leave the HP parallel printer as is through a network share, that works fine just printing to it - it is trying to switch the driver over to the Canon, or changing the Canon print settings, that is killing me....

Thanks for any hints. I've been googling around for awhile but don't have anything concrete to go on yet...