Networked Printer Help

[Skirmisher]

I need to pick the brains of you more technically inclined posters please.

I have a small wireless network with one of the computers having an HP 1200 laserjet attached.

I was never able to access the laserjet with the other two computers in the past, but recently replaced one of them with a newer and while installing everything including the local inkjet, I noticed that the system had automatically located the HP also. I assumed it would not work but gave it a shot and lo and behold it was able to print fine to the other machine with the HP attached.

Now I want to be able to print to the HP with the second machine also but am so far unable to.

The machine with the HP is using XP home and both other machines have XP pro. The machine I am trying to print from is also the machine the router is connected to if that makes any difference.

I have copied the port information from the computer able to print to the laser to the machine unable to print when i did the "add printer" function and got the "unable to detect printer" error message. I was also unable to see it when i clicked the browse button.

Any advice as to what to look for would be very gratefully accepted.

[Apotheosis]

something about turning on printer sharing. So, you would probably find that in the control panel for the printer that is "offline".

[Skirmisher]

Yes, that is set to share, but thanks.

[Wezas]

If your actual printer isn't a "network" printer (doesn't have an ethernet port on the back of it), then you'll need to plug it directly into your XP machine and share. It sounds like you've already done this step, so you can skip the next paragraph if you want.

To share, right-click on the printer in question (control panel -> printers & faxes -> your printer), then click on "Sharing...". Choose "Share this printer" and give it a one-word name, under 8 characters long(just to be safe when working with other operating systems).

You said "The machine I'm trying to print from is the machine the router is hooked up to". Are the other machines connected to the network wirelessly?

[Skirmisher]

Yes, all are connected via a linksys g wireless setup.

[xtc]

Shit I did this but can't remember how. Have you tried using the printer setup disk on the machine you can't print from? Is your printer connect to the router or the computer? One of the problems I was having when trying to print from a notebook that was connected to the network via wireless was that the I.P. address of the printer would change and I configured the notebook to print to the printer's IP address. I had to change it to print to the name of the printer.

If your printer is connected to a computer via a traditional printer cable you should be able to set up printing as a shared resource.

[Edited on 8-31-2005 by xtc]

[xtc]

Check out this link, these people seemed to have a similiar problem:

http://www.duxcw.com/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=12487

[Skirmisher]

Oh, thats interesting reading, I'll look into it in just a bit though as the machine is currently in use.

Thanks so much for the suggestions.