Re: Simple Printer Sharing/Networking Question

husky86 wrote:
We are trying to connect 3 desktop computers in a small office situation to form a network where we can (most importantly) share 2 dedicated printers for the office (HP color laser and monochrome laser printers). We are running these 3 desktop systems through a simple router forming a LAN.

Both of these printers are connected directly to one of these desktop computers, by the way. And all 3 desktop computers are running Windows XP Pro (SP3).

We have turned on sharing for the network printers (in association with this one desktop that is directly connected to the 2 printers) but they don't appear on 2 of the computer's networks options.

In attempting to use the Add Printer Wizard, we are getting some specific errors. Let me quickly take you through the setup process:

1. Within the first dialogbox we are given the option to "Select the option that describes the printer you want to use." We choose "A network printer, or printer attached to another computer."
2. The next dialogbox gives us the option to "What printer do you want to connect to?" We select "Browse for a printer."
3. The following dialog box asks us to "Browse for Printer." Under the "Shared printers" there is Microsoft Windows Network, underneath that there is WORKGROUP, and then the computer name for the computer to which the 2 printers are directly connected. There is no listing for an actual printer, in other words. The field "Printer" is blank.
4. When we have attempted to fill in the Printer field with the actual name of the printer (assigned name on the desktop computer to which it is directly attached) we receive one of the following 2 error messages: (1) "You need to specify a valid network printer name." or "Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed in correctly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server."

What are we doing in correctly? Perhaps there is a website that we can go to that describes this process simply and in a straightforward manner?

By the way, we also set up the networking (using the Networking Setup Wizard on each of the other 2 computers, but this didn't seem to help the problem).

Many thanks for all comments and suggestions!

Here is standard networking advice from MS-MVP Malke. You may have done some of the steps but not all. The two issues most likely giving you trouble are failure to set up identical accounts on all of the machines (if you have "Simple File Sharing" turned off) and not having firewalls properly configured. Note that sharing files and sharing printers are governed by the same mechanism - if you can't share files, you can't share printers, and vice versa.

<Malke>

File/printer sharing

Excellent, thorough, yet easy to understand article about File/Printer
Sharing in Vista. Includes details about sharing printers as well as files and folders:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspx

For XP, start by running the Network Setup Wizard on all machines (see
caveat in Item A below).

Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused by 1) a misconfigured firewall or overlooked firewall (including a stateful firewall in a VPN); or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls such as the built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3) not having identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines; 4) trying to create shares where the operating system does not permit it.

A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN) traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a third-party firewall or have an antivirus with "Internet Worm Protection" (like Norton 2006/07) which acts as a firewall, then you're fine. With third-party firewalls, I usually configure the LAN allowance with an IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you would substitute your correct subnet. Do not run more than one firewall. DO NOT TURN OFF FIREWALLS; CONFIGURE THEM CORRECTLY.

B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab.

C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just need to exist and match on all machines. DO NOT NEGLECT TO CREATE PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES. If you wish a machine to boot directly to the Desktop (into one particular user's account) for convenience, you can do this. The instructions at this link work for both XP and Vista:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

D. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab).

E. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder. See the first link above for details about Vista sharing.

F. After you have file sharing working (and have tested this by exchanging a file between all machines), if you want to share a printer connected locally to one of your computers, share it out from that machine. Then go to the printer mftr.'s website and download the latest drivers for the correct operating system(s). Install them on the target machine(s). The printer should be seen during the installation routine. If it is not, install the drivers and then use the Add Printer Wizard. In some instances, certain printers need to be installed as Local printers but that is outside of this response.

</Malke>

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
.

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