trouble sharing files

I have a new window vista desktop. I also have another desktop and laptop
both on XP home that share files and printers successfully for over a year
now. I will be getting rid of the old desktop and now want my windows vista
desktop to share its files with my laptop. I made the vista system workgroup
name the same as my laptop and old desktop = mshome. Now, when I click
network the vista system can see both the laptop and desktop. I turned off
password protection on the vista machine so from what I have read it would
appear that I am read to share the vista machine files with any other pc's
on my home network. However, when I go to document and click share, it opens
a dialog window that says "choose people to share with". I tried typing in
the computer name I have for my laptop and it says it can't find a path.
Then I tried typing in the pc descrition and got the same message. I then
just went to bottom of dialog box and cliscked share. After a few minutes I
am now able to see the files on my old desktop and also on my laptop-yeah!
However, in network places on both my laptop and desktop I see an icon with
the name "users of den2008(us-pc) den2008 is what I used as pc description
and us-pc is the pc name of new computer. However, when I click on that I do
not see any files to access. I have no idea what to do next. Help please!!!
Carl