Synchronizing a laptop with a desktop

[kag]

My dad got a laptop for his job and he would like to be able to sync some files between his two computers.

What kind of cable does he need? The PC doesn't have a NIC so could he use a male-male USB cable and connect both computers together?

Is the software for this built in Windows XP?

 

[Jeff7]

Is the computer his? A new NIC is easily under $10. Those probably aren't the greatest NICs in the world, but they should do the job.

The way I know of to sync files with Windows is to create a network drive linked to the drive/folder you want on the desktop. Then, right-click the folders, and select Make Available Offline. One problem I've encountered - if you create a new folder at the desktop in that shared folder, Synchronize on the laptop won't pick up the new folder. Might be a bug, might be a "feature" I'm not sure.

I also don't know if there's a better way of doing offline files/synchronizing. If there is, I'll listen too.