David,   Ad-Hoc connection is ok if you were in a hotel room, without a wireless router and you needed to share files or print to a wireless printer. For a home, I would use the wireless router. Virus programs and firewalls will also block communications, so that is another area to watchout for.   I have shared files and folders on my network and it's not really hard to do. The link I gave you is for XP/Windows7, keep in mind that the default for Windows 7 is WORKGROUP and XP is MSHOME, so you'll need to change the default on one or both.     Rick
If I am not in the right forum, please redirect me.... I am exasperated, having spent four weeks looking at hundreds of help files in Dell, Microsoft and others in getting an ad-hoc computer-to computer system operational.  None have worked.  I get the impression that such instructions have been written by folks who are very specialised and assume users are very network tecknology savvy. Although I am prepared to go into detail of my actual case (I don't want to bore people at this stage) I would prefer to get advice from people who are able to recommend a definitive solution so others can also benefit. In summary I have: Having followed all the instructions which seem to be common to most help files, I have set the network parameters to WPA2-Personal / AES with a common password.  Neither recognises each other and the Network Troubleshooter says it can't do anything to help but I should consult the IT guru - that is me, but I'm not! Polite suggestions are most welcomed! David      
Ad-hoc wireless connection between Windows 7 and Windows XP computers...