Cat5 crossover cable conneciton sharing with DSL issue

I have a home system running WinME connected to DSL through the built in MoBo
Ethernet connector. This was a very painful installation requiring repeated
tech support from Bombay. It now works fine.

Now I would like to be able to periodically connect my laptop (Win2K) to the
home system using a cat5 cross over cable for the purpose of file transfer,
backup and so forth. I do not wish to share the Internet connection on the
laptop. I am concerned that just unplugging the DSL connection and connecting
the two computers together will hose the DSL conneciton when I reconnect the
home computer to the network.

I am pretty sure this will not just plug and play and I am going to have to
fiddle with settings. Since the DSL connection is using TCP/IP, I am wondering
if adding NetBuei or another protocol and use it with the crossover cable and
then using this protocol I can avoid screwing up the DSL connection when it is
reconnected.

If this involves having to fiddle with networking settings each time then it
probably won't be worth the learning curve.

Regards,

John