Is it necessary to have both my laptop and my destop PC on in order to transfer files. They are both networked (wireless).
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Yes, to transfer files between them they have to be on. How else could the files get transfered?

Transfering means that machine A: has some shared folders/files, and that machine B: makes a request to see/use them. So both A and B have to be on for this to happen.

The one exception to this is if the shared files live on say a shared network drive, those little external boxes that look a little bigger than hard disks, but which are actually tiny little computers, with networking etc (but not just a regular usb/firewire external hard disk, which has to be connected to an on computer to work), which could be thought of as micro machine C, which are starting to get a bit more popular among home users. But I doubt that's the case here.

This is assuming your network is very simple, of course, and that you have shared the files you want to transfer already, and that you have added each machine user name to the other machine's list of system users so that the other machine knows to let that user access the files in question.
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