Vista with XP networking?

I have two pc's .





One has got Windows Vista and the other is Windows XP.





Im networking the two pc's using a simple CAT5 Cross Cable.





I had connected the two computers a week back and they were networking well and I was even able to share the Internet Connection using ICS.





However, now since the past few days, Im unable to access the any of the two PC's over the network. They refuse to show up in the network places and Im unable to PING them also.





I have ensured that the workgroup name is the same





The steps I used was to give the Vista Machine which has the internet connection an IP address of 192.168.0.1 . Default gateway was 255.255.255.0.





I activated ICS on the Vista Machine and I didnt set any IP address on the XP machine. The IP was set automatically. Now that also doesnt work.





Please guide me .





Is there any way to reset all the settings to the original and start on a fresh slate. I may have messed up some settings.





Thanks a million!

Vista with XP networking?
try deactivated the firewall on vista, and are you the administrator on the vista machine, since thats often a problem