Hey sorry for my lack of knowledge:
but i got three network cards, one in on the w2k pc, the other two are on the linux-box, if i do static in all 3, 192.168.0.1 goes on card to the cable-modem
192.168.0.2 goes on the second card to be connected to the w2k machine and in the w2k machine i could go 192.168.0.3.
Now the gateway would be the card going to the cable modem, is this right?

But I tried static , non-static (DCHP), combination of both and still cannot connect these two machines. Is there some kind of standard architecture to accomplish what i am trying to do.
Thanks for the reply,