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USB printing on a network
My friend is printing to a printer via USB port. He is running Windows XP
and so am I. Both our PCs are on the same network. What is the easiest setup so can I print to his printer, please? Thanks, |
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USB printing on a network
NewIT wrote:
My friend is printing to a printer via USB port. He is running Windows XP and so am I. Both our PCs are on the same network. What is the easiest setup so can I print to his printer, please? Thanks, If your computers are already configured to share files over the network, then all you have to do is "share" the printer on your friend's computer. Right-click on the printer icon in Printers and Faxes, choose Properties, and then the Sharing tab. Do not use any special characters in the "share name." Then install the printer on your computer. See item F below. If your computers can't share files, or if you don't know one way or the other, see this advice from MS MVP Malke: Quote 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 OptionsView 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. 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. /Quote -- Lem Apollo 11 - 40 years ago: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ap...0th/index.html |
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