i have a laptop with xp and alaptop with vista premium.
i have a cat5e cable.
can i link the 2 computers so that i can take data from tha xp laptop and put it on the vista one.
any help would be great.

Here are a few ideas from the web:

First off your cable needs to ba a Crossover Cable:

What makes the cable a crossover cable? It doesn’t look any different physically, and it’s only different electrically. Old-timers may remember something called a null modem, which was used to connect PCs through their serial ports in ancient times. A crossover cable is a null modem for Ethernet ports rather than serial ports. It connects the output pins of one Ethernet port to the input pins of another and vice versa. No communication can happen between two PCs on a straight-through patch cable because with a straight-through cable, the two PCs’ input pins are connected together, as are the output pins. Inputs can’t talk to inputs, nor outputs to outputs. The crossover cable makes sure that inputs talk to outputs and outputs to inputs.

Then:

1. Make sure the network ports on both PCs are enabled in pre-Vista PCs. To do this, click Start, then Settings, and then Network and Dial Up Connections. Look for a line labeled “Local Area Connection” and be sure that it’s marked as “Enabled.”

2. Make sure the cable in your hand is indeed a crossover cable, and connect it between the two Ethernet ports.

3. Power up or reboot both PCs.

Once both PCs are past bootup, give them a few minutes to self-assign an IP address with APIPA and locate one another.

4. For XP PCs, in Windows Explorer, expand My Network Places and click on Computers Near Me. Look and see if the name of the opposite PC is displayed. For Vista, open Network. If you don't see the new PC, click Network and Sharing Center and enable "discovery".

Having trouble copying from XP Pro to Vista
The permissions that Vista requires seem more stringent than in XP Pro. I have happily copied from XP Pro to XP Pro for years. When copying from XP machine to Vista machine, files will copy; but when on Vista machine and trying to copy from XP, some files copied and other s didn’t.
Solution:
I tried about 50 different solutions – none worked! The XP machine has not set the permissions in a way that Vista can copy from, so you need to set them up on the XP machine.
1. Go to the folder (not file) that stores the files that won’t copy (eg. the yellow My Documents folder).
2. Right click on the folder and select PROPERTIES.
3. Select the SECURITY tab.
4. Select ADVANCED (bottom right).
5. Make sure you select the PERMISSIONS tab if it isn’t already selected.
6. Click on “Allow _ Everyone _ Modify _ ....” the lines with MODIFY on, are the ones that are preventing the files from transferring.
7. Now that the “Allow _ Everyone _ Modify _ ....” line is selected, click EDIT.
8. In the list of permissions in the next window, you’ll see some UNSELECTED boxes under the heading ALLOW.
9. SELECT each of these to give full control to the EVERYONE name.
10. Click OK
11. Place ticks in both boxes at the bottom left of this window (Adva

thanks for that

No problem. Let us know if we can help further.