This ought to be more straight forward. As in consistencies. I got it working and here's what I did. At the "Run" command I typed in the network name (//name) and then connected and then mapped drives to the folders on the other PC. Have rebooted and I have confidence at this point it will continue to work. Works in both directions. Laptop to desktop and desktop to laptop.
Now...this a.m. my router farts. No idea what happened. Suddenly lost internet access. Connect directly to cable modem and all is well. So, tried the usual steps first (power cycle cable modem and router, reconnect modem and when back online connect router, etc) and none of which worked. I decided to reset the router with the 10 second hold on the reset switch. I have saved off a config file already. Gets me back online. All seems fine. However, it doesn't like the password that I KNOW that I have saved in this config file.
I only know to reset (10 second) again, reconfig manually and save a new config file. Or, do you know of a workaround with the password? Can't imagine what.