Creating file sharing network with Win98&WinXP

Hello!

I have hard time dealing with creating a network with Win8.1 as a primary home computer/file server and two gaming computers on Win98 and WinXP. All of them connected via simple 4-port lan switch with internet cable incuded. Win8 and WinXP machines can see internet connection but not each other. I am not really good at networking so any help is welcome.


Thanks!

The basic requirement for Windows Workgroup networking is to create users on all systems with Identical UserNames and Preferably Identical passwords, you then need to Share the parts of the Hard Disk you wish to, using the windows Legacy network tools and allow the specific users access in the NTFS security system.This has not changed since Windows NT so what you want should be possible - Have not worked with windows networking on XP or Win 9x in such a long time to give any specifics so you may need to check with more specific sources online, though there may well be others here who can make specific suggestions

Folder and file sharing amongst Windows 8 and Windows XP & 95-8 will be problematic at best. I tried that with Windows 7 and got mixed results pretty much all time. While Windows 7 & 8 quite often can see the others' folders and files, neither my 98 nor my XP worked with the folders and files on the Windows 7 computer. I even tried a usb-to-usb folder/file exchanger/updater: while that worked, it worked independently of whatever network existed.