Thanks. P.S. I hve bought a 10-foot-long cable with a male BJ45 connection at both ends. Sorry, mistype: it is RJ45. if you have 98, I think you can set up what's called a peer-to-peer network On the desktop I would have to unplug the printer temporarily to free a socket. After connecting the desktop and the laptop, would I have to restart them? Or what should I do? there's 2 version of 98..SR1 and 2..2 fixed bugs in SR1 How can I found which version I have, merely by looking at files in my computers?