I know, I know... This is not the exact place for these kind of questions, but I don't want to register into a windows forum or something. Since here there are some dual-booters, I hope someone will be able to answer my question.
The situation:
I have a desktop PC connected to a wireless router, and I have a laptop connected to this router/network through wireless. Both computers in the same workgroup. I want to connect to my desktop PC through the router, when WinXP is running on that PC(when my mom uses it). This would be great, since I could connect to the printer there, and could access my music and movie files. The problem is, that I can't access the desktop PC. When win searches for the desktop PC, it finds it, it can see it, but thats all. I can't access it. I have active shares there and the printer is connected and shared too.
I checked the desktop PC, and found something very interesting. From that computer I can't access the workgroup at all. My user account is the admin account there, but still can't access it. I have 2 LAN cards there, but I don't think that the other card can make trouble, since only one card is enabled at one time. I think this is the source of my problem. If I could access the workgroup on the desktop PC, than I think I will be able to see things from the laptop too.
Any ideas how to fix this workgroup access problem?
Thanks.

I have a similar problem too. I gave up along time ago and use other methods for transferring data around. I can't seem to access anything on other computers. Nothing on the internet I found worked and many peoples posts were incomplete and unanswered.

What I do is when I need to print I transfer data to the computer connected to the printer or simply attach printer to my laptop and print.

Did you check your firewall settings? Most firewall softwares block internal connections by default. You need to adjust your firewall on both computers to allow communication.

Try this first, disable all software firewalls temporally, including windows xp builtin firewall on all computers.

DO NOT TURN OFF ROUTER FIREWALL!!

Next try to connect to your workgroups. If you succeed, then it was your software firewall blocking you. Adjust your firewalls on both computer and test.

First of all, thanks for the replies.
On the desktop PC Windows firewall is not turned on and there are no other firewall software installed. And this is why this whole problem is very interesting. Nothing should block me when I try to access the workgroup from the desktop PC. The main problem is, that from the computer (desktop) where I do share things, I can't access the workgroup. By default, I should be able to access it, even if the computer is not connected to any network. When I try to go to the WG (workgroup) it sais something that I don't have the permissions to access it. The ADMIN does not have the permissions??? Than who does? God maybe? I really don't know what to do.
In the same time, I added the home PC to the trusted zone in the laptop firewall software, so firewalls should not cause problems.
Any ideas?

In my household, we have three computers. One uses only linux,which is mine, and the other two uses windows xp, which my family uses. I've setup windows file sharing on the xp machines
and they're working fine. Here is what I did.

Both xp machines get their ip from the linksys router i.e dhcp.

XP machine #1: With the Shares

Enable file and print sharing
Assign a workgruop name example: HOME *no spaces in workgroup
Share a folder(s)
adjust firewall to allow computer(s) on local network

XP machine #2: Accessing the Shares

Assign a workgruop name example: HOME
adjust firewall to allow computer(s) on local network

This is how I setup the windows xp's and they work for me.

Notes:

Both XP machines don't use password authentications when they boot up, they select their screen name and login.

If you use password authentications on your windows decktop and laptop, it's a good idea to have the same screen name and password on both machines. Sometimes this fixes the problem.

Windows uses these variables when it connects to another machine or prompts you if user name and password is different.

I think you don't understand dv502. I really did everything necessary to build up my network. I configured the LAN cards for dhcp, the machines are in the same workgroup, firewall issues solved, shares are created, printer is shared, etc, but from the computer, where I have the shares, I can't access the workgroup. Even if I should be able to see it, even if the computer is not connected to anywhere. And the other thing is, that I can communicate with my linksys router, because I can use the web based config tool of the router.
Is there something I should set in the router? I mean did I forget to allow some kind of traffic in the router itself? What i wanna ask is, what do I need to set in the router, to be able to use a home network? Just asking it to create a checklist, because maybe I forgot something.

Sorry pusrob, I have no idea why it is not letting you access the the other computer. It's possible it could be a router issue or maybe not. When I setup my xp machines, I did not have to do anything with the router.

Hopefully, maybe someone who had a similar experience might read your thread and provide a solution. If I think of anything else, I'll post it.

I understand. Actually there is a solution for file sharing, which might even work. And this is a simple ftp server. There is a simple ftp server builder app for windows (my brother uses it). With it I could possibly access the files, but unfortunatelly not the printer. Accessing the printer would be very nice, but now, it seems that micro$oft won't allow me to do such a simple thing.
Thanks anyway for all your replies.
If somebody else has suggestions, I'm still waiting.