i'm trying to network my brother's mac and my pc together - but am having a few weird issues...

first of all -
finder ftp - doesn't. it can list, but only caches - so you need to manually refresh to see if anything has happened (which it doesn't - 'cos it's only read only!)
I can upload files one by one from the terminal window, as recursive mode bombs out
ditto with ncftp - where you can't even list files or folders, and copies all folders correctly - but no files (bizarre)

when I try and mount a fileshare on my machine, it reports that the shortcut can't be located - don't understand that at all.
while trying to browse my server for smb shares - requests and validates the username and password - but can't browse the server.
have tried adding file sharing for mac - which also shows up - but won't request username and password, just reports that the path couldn't be found.

short of burning loads of cd's - is there any way to make this work?

his is a g3 flatscreen ball style mac running 10.3.5 - server is running win2k3 server and ms ftp.