vista & 98se how to?

I have a lan with 2 98se pcs connected to a 4 port modem.
I added a Vista Home Basic notebook, connects to the router and internet
fine,
but I cannot work out how to connect to the 98se pc's files.
I can ping both the 98 machines from the vista.
(also I can't get a ping out of the Vista machine from itself, except if I
boot in a diag mode, but then I can't connect to the router in this state)
So I am guessing it is is some sort of firewalling issue, but firewalling is
switched off?

I basically just want to transfer some files onto the new machine from the
old ones.

Can anyone please advise?
The websites I have looked at so far just confuse me, especially the stuff
about NTLM 2, which I couldn't work out how to install. Some things I read
say its not possible(from a MVP) some say it is.