Before I tell my nefew to fidle with my dad's computer...
To use a normal cable to connect two computers, do you need BOTH computers to have an auto-sense NIC or is one enough ?
Thanks.

logically it would seem that only one would have to autosense but im not 100% sure and have never tested this.

This statement from the wiki should give hope, and with our antiquated equipment I am sure I have had one with and one without.

Autosense is for 10Mbit vs 100Mbit, I'd definately use a crossover cable.

Eyeball, that was exactly my position when posting , untill I read Iamtheky's post which seems to raise the chance above 80%.
Uid0, I'm talking autosense on cable level. Unless I'm the one using the wrong words in which case someone please correct me, I think you're talking "auto-negotiation".
+I'm in a 100 vs "probably 1000" situation and I'll send instructions by mail or on the phone. That's why I can't just say "pick up a crosscable".
I will report. Thanks.

Nothing to report unfortunately. The laptop was older than I thought (no gigabit and XP). I sent him a cross cable and I had him on the phone. He managed to have Skype working but no Internet (???). Short investigation showed that his portable (adress 192.168.0.116) could ping the other one (0.1) but not the opposite. We tried disabling fiewalls, same thing. He's gone to Canada now so no need to bother. Still strange. I also see there is a bug introduced by SP3, I'll check that for next time.