Sorry, you aren't dumb. I've just worked with networking so long that I forget that not everybody has experience with it.

I shouldn't have said that it would have already been installed, but I thought you had meant that you'd use the laptop to get it set up. My router isn't connected to any computer, it's only connected to my cable modem and the computers have wireless cards in them that work with the router. I've never used a wireless router with a dial up connection, so I'm not really sure how that works.

Either way, you would have to install the hardware and set up the network from one of the computers and have a wireless card or onboard (built-in) wireless in the other. To use the wireless with the one not used to set it up, you'd have to set up a new internet connection (adding the wireless connection) and it would then search for any wireless networks in your area.

I do think you'll find it's much easier than you expect, because the router should come with instructions for setting it up and a CD to do most of the work. It's during the initial set up that you name the network and enter the password, and then you enter them both when you add the connection to the second computer.