Gotta be more detailed. What IP addresses do you have assigned? Are they on the same subnet? Try turning on Internet Connection Sharing, that might help. Can you ping one machine from the other? Can you use NetBEUI to communicate and not TCP/IP? Are you positive it is a cross-over cable? Do you have another NIC in one machine for a broadband connection?

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Ack! I didn't realize there were so many variables : L
I'm new to networking so please be patient, I'm trying :)

ok the IP addresses I assigned are 207.179.99.1 for my w2k box and 207.179.99.2 for his 98se machine

the subnet mask on both machines is 255.255.0

Yes I am positive it's a crossover cable connecting the two computers

I cannot ping either machine from either machine

I am restricted to a dial-up connection here. So to answer your question "no" I do not have another Nic in one/either machine for a broadband connection

I don't know how to turn on the Internet connection sharing in 98 or 2k? where is that?

and I don't know how to use NetBEUI :(

I applogoze for being so naaive

okay, first thing is your ip address.
you need to use non-routable addresses that have been reserved for private networks
you can use:
10.0.0.0-10.255.255.255 (subnet mask is 255.0.0.0)
172.16.0.0-172.31.255.255 (subnet mask is 255.255.0.0)
192.168.0.0-192.168.255.255 (subnet mask is 255.255.255.0)
(I'm just doing this from memory so the first two might not be exact, so I apologize if that is the case)
the only one you're probably concerned with is the third one.
Assign your first computer with ip 192.168.0.1/255.255.255.0
Assign your second computer with ip 192.168.0.2/255.255.255.0

see how that works out with pinging. any other probs, don't hesitate to ask!

Thanks,
Sixwayz

Yep, yep.

No one seems to like the 172 network for some reason. When you can't get machines to talk over TCP/IP try going to NetBEUI and that usually works right away (there are no variables for NetBEUI) and you can at least verify that your cards are working and cable is good.

If you turn on ICS (internet connection sharing) it will automatically set your NIC to 192.168.0.1 and will assign IP addresses on other machines on the network via DHCP.

It really helps to go to the command prompt when you are trouble shooting. Ping the other computer, if that doesn't work ping your own computer, when there are problems some times your NIC wont be assigned an IP address and you won't even be able to ping your own machine. The other invaluable tool is IPCONFIG look at the help file for this to learn how to use it. If you do an ipconfig /all and it returns your ip address as 0.0.0.0 then you've got problems.

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go get a new x-over cable...

if you ain't sure then, make sure.. I had a similar prob yonks ago

Sounds stupid, but check the status lights on the Network cards. If they sold you a non-crossover cable by mistake, then it wont work. Make sure that the connection light is on, on the network cards.

-Dark