Networking two XP virtual machines

Hi there,

I'm having trouble networking my two XP VMs, one located on my iMac, one on my macbookPro. Both are running paralles 7 with XP SP3.

The macs see the network just fine, and all systems can connect to the internet.

But the two XP machines simply won't see each other, I've even had my IT brother in law in to make sure all the settings in XP (sharing, firewalls, network etc) are all correct. He says everything should be fine but there's a weird IP thing happening and it looks like its coming from how Parallels sets up the network. (he wasn't familiar with Parallels so couldn't offer much help there)

Rather than go through an exhaustive trial and error of my system settings, it's probably easier just to ask...

Firstly, should the XP machines be able to see each other?

And if so, what are the optimal network settings to allow this to happen? I've tried all the 'bridged' 'shared' and 'host' options, beyond that it all looks a bit complicated for my small brain. I also tried to find some 'revert to default' option to start my setup from scratch but couldn't see one.

Thanks for any help.