Are you looking for a way to share everything from your home PC to your laptop over your network securely? Here’s a way:

1) Create a user with a nice complex password for use on your network. Create the same user with the same password on both machines, and use it as your login on both machines. That way you won’t get bothered with having to authenticate every time.

2) Set the password encryption level on both machines to be high security (rather than high compatibility). [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\
control\LSA]LMCompatibilityLevel = 3
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q239869

3) If desired, hide your computer from network browsers by setting
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Services\LanmanServer\Parameters]Hidden = 1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q265284

4) If desired, disable administrative shares (such as C$)…
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314984

5) Use Windows XP’s encrypting file system (EFS) to ensure that files sent over the network are encrypted.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308991

6) When you create a shared resource, apart from password protecting it, name it with a $ sign at the end (eg: musicDrive$), this will make it hidden from cursory exploring of the network.

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