Easiest and fastest way to transfer the data, if the volume is substantial, would be to remove the drive from the XP machine and hook it up directly to you windows 8 box.
Easiest and fastest way to transfer the data, if the volume is substantial, would be to remove the drive from the XP machine and hook it up directly to you windows 8 box.
email it to yourself from one machine to the other if its just a few things. If more I would take one disk out and put it in the other machine. It will see it as a new drive.
Why not just plug each end of a patch cable into each computer as an ad-hoc network? A crossover cable isn't needed, as every NIC made in the past decade will support auto-MDIX. Assuming the computers aren't ancient they will connect at gigabit speed.