OK I got problems when trying connect my laptop with desktop via direct cable
connection.

What I have:
Two systems, both of them have:
  Win XP Pro as OS
  Ethernet card and interface
One CAT 5e cross-over cable (the specific pc-to-pc type, not the general one)

What I did:
Following the microsoft support instruction until the part 5:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814985/

After set up a host and guest node, when I tried to establish a contact
between them I got stucked at step 7,of "Configure the Guest Computer", the
connection failed at "verifying  username and password" window.

Some side notes:
1. I took LPT instead of COM1 as the communication device during setup.
2. Among users allowed to connect I didn't set a particular password for
both computers' account, so during connection the password was left as blank.
3. I didn't assign a specific TCP/IP addresses but using automatical DHCP
mode.

Any comment?
Thanks a lot,
Hao